ISLAMABAD, May 5: The Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet, Establishment and Management Services on Thursday observed that the electronic media should promote patriotism and inculcate scientific attitudes and social values among the young. The committee, which met in the Parliament House here with Senator Mrs Tanveer Khalid in the chair, said the electronic media had the potential to impart latest knowledge and infuse national cohesion and sectarian harmony in the country.

The committee members also stressed that the concept of enlightened moderation should be explained and discussed on TV so that the nation was geared to completely eradicate extremism and terrorism from the society.

These observations were made by the members after listening to a detailed briefing on the role, mandate and performance of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) in facilitating the participation of private channels in the effort.

Pemra Chairman Iftikhar Rasheed, in his briefing, informed the committee that the authority had a lot of drawbacks in its rules and regulations and said amendments proposed in the Ordinance would increase its role both as a regulator and facilitator.

The Pemra chief said during the past three years 73 FM radio broadcast channels had been issued licenses out of which 24 had become operational.

Similarly, 16 satellite TV channels have been awarded licenses, 10 of which are already telecasting programmes. Pemra was making all these efforts within its limited resources, he said.

The committee members asked penetrating questions on the performance of Pemra with special reference to enforcement and strict adherence to the code of conduct by the cable operator.

The Pemra chairman informed the committee that 173 illegal cable operators had been detected and fined and 119 operators were closed completely. A revenue of Rs8,052,495 was generated in the process.

The committee members observed that the infrastructure of the authority needed to be upgraded and its financial resources improved. The Pemra chairman assured improvements on both fronts by the end of this year.

The committee expressed its satisfaction over the performance of Pemra and directed its chairman to identify any weakness and sort them out.

The meeting was also attended by senators Mohammad Amjad Abbas Komaili, Dr Safdar Ali Abbasi, Rehmatullah Kakar Advocate, Sardar Mohammad Latif Khan Khosa and Kamran Murtaza. The Pemra chairman and other officers were also present.