Gogoi follows Mamata, plans government channel in Assam

Guwahati, April 23 (IANS) Following in the footsteps of his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has said his government would soon have its own news channel to showcase developmental activities across the state.

"I am following the steps of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. I too realised that a news channel is the need of the hour to properly highlight the developments and success stories of the government," Gogoi said Monday.

The existing private news channels in the state were "not credible", he said and added they do not highlight developmental stories or the government's success stories.

"A channel of the government is needed to inform the people in various remote parts of the state about various initiatives of the government and the developmental schemes launched by the government," he said.

Gogoi specifically mentioned the April 20 visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"The private channels in Assam showed that the 12-hour Assam bandh call given by the banned ULFA was successful. The coverage showed as if Paresh Baruah is the all-in-all in Assam. In fact, the visit of the prime minister was a successful one as there was not a single incident of violence reported from anywhere in the state," he said.

The proposed government channel would focus on the three sectors of agriculture, education and health to make people in remote areas aware of the benefits from various schemes, Gogoi added.

The chief minister said the government would launch developmental programmes in backward areas, particularly those in border areas.

"We have decided to launch the developmental programmes in backward areas along the border to prevent the growing Maoists activities."

"There have been reports that the Maoist activities are growing in some backward areas of the state. We are going to concentrate in those areas with developmental schemes and programmes so that left-wing insurgency cannot spread further in the state," he added.

West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee said Saturday that her government wanted to launch a news channel and a magazine to highlight its achievements because "you won't get any recognition for that in the media".