Doordarshan, India's public broadcaster, has approved 163 proposals for programmes to be telecast on DD Urdu chanel, following a directive from the Prasar Bharati board on Monday.

Each of the proposals will be given 13 episodes each. DD on Wednesday placed on its website the list of 163 serials.

The board had on 6 August authorized Doordarshan to immediately proceed to build a bank of programmes for DD Urdu for the next six to eight months.

The Prasar Bharati has decided to grant phase-wise approval to the commissioned programmes for the DD Urdu channel. Prasar Bharati Chief Executive Officer Jawhar Sircar had told indiantelevision.com that the details of the selected programmes covering all six genres to be commissioned by the pubcaster in the first phase would be uploaded soon on the DD website.

"It was a long and complex matter. Besides budget considerations too had to be balanced", said Prasar Bharati Board Chairperson Mrinal Pande.

Out of a total of 1046 proposals received for commissioning of Urdu programmes, a total of 579 proposals were shortlisted by the three Committees under the chairmanships of M. K. Kaw, Prof. Shahid Mehndi, and former DG Shiv Sharma.

The Board felt that approvals in respect of all these 579 proposals was not feasible, not only because of the huge expenditure involved but also because of issues relating to quality control, limitations on slotting and maintaining a balance between various categories and genres. The proposals shortlisted on minimum benchmark basis, final selection for the first phase of commissioning was on the basis of fund availability and requirements in various genres, as per the fixed point chart during the current financial year.

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