Buy a TV set, pay a new tax! That could be the new mantra to rescue Prasar Bharati. But this could prove costly to the Karunanidhi government.

There could soon be a 40 inch hole in the Karunanidhi government’s budget. Having doled out 25 lakh free colour TV sets so far as part of his pre-election promise, there’s still close to 65 lakh families waiting to add some colour to their lives. Now here’s the hitch. The GoM on Prasar Bharati is proposing a new tax on each TV set sold in the country.

The levy could be between 5-10%. This new tax could fetch Prasar Bharati close to Rs 900 crore every year. Additionally private channels could also be asked to pay 5% of their gross revenue to Prasar Bharati as a public broadcast fee. All this to bail out the white elephant, the public broadcaster, which needs Rs 3000 crore every year for operations. But its revenues fall short by almost half that amount.

Said Abhishek Datta a consumer, “Undercutting a private company to fund something that is loss-making because of the incompetence of the officials is probably incorrect.”

Ashok Marwah a consumer electronics dealer said, “Basically they're charging for their inefficiency.”

Which brings us back to Karunanidhi's largesse. The government there is already footing a bill of Rs 750 crore a year which could now go up to a whopping Rs 1500 crores, which could well fund the governments flagship NREGA project for a number of districts.