Director-General of the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) Murtaza Solangi has said that a 100kw digital transmitter will soon be installed at Radio Pakistan’s Khairpur station and its infrastructure for medium wave transmission will also be upgraded. At a news conference after inaugurating 90.3-5 Mega-Hertz FM at PBC House here on Tuesday, he said that high power transmission (HPT) had been closed in Khairpur because it was based on obsolete and outdated technology. He said that the property/building/agricultural land of HPT network was neither given on lease nor would it be sold as was being rumoured. He said that Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had pledged a Rs80 million grant for installation of digital transmitter at the radio station for HPT.
He said that a 100kw digital transmitter approved for Larkana radio station during the tenure of Benazir Bhutto had been shifted to Turbat by the previous government adding that a 100kw digital transmitter would soon be installed in PBC Larkana. Answering a question, he said that the programmes giving message of peace and secularism through profile and poetry of Sufi poets of Sindh –like Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, Sachal Sarmast, Rohal Faqir, Ghamdil Faqir and Janan Chan — should be broadcast from Khairpur radio station on provincial hook-up. He said that a summary to regularize contract employees of the PBC had been submitted to the information ministry and added that fee structure of artistes and singers is also being revised. He said that there were pending arrears left by the previous government due to which payment of medical allowance to PBC employees was being delayed. He, however, said that efforts were being made to resolve the issue. He said that the employees who were working at HPT Khairpur would not be disturbed and would continue to work till the installation of digital transmitter. Our Larkana correspondent adds: Talking to Dawn after federal information secretary Mansoor Suhail’s press conference, Mr Solangi said that two new 100 KW power transmitters had been purchased which would be installed in Larkana and Hyderabad soon. Their coverage capability would be 300 kilometers in radius during daytime which would almost be doubled in night and their transmission could clearly be listened in throughout Sindh, eastern Balochistan, southern Punjab and Rajasthan and Gujrat (India), he said. – Dawn
