EDUCATION AND CULTURE

DIRECTORATE OF PUBLICITY

District Publicity Officer: The Director of Publicity [Now designated as Chief Director of Information and Public Relations.], Maharashtra State, has a publicity officer for the district with headquarters at Akola. The District Publicity Officer works under the direct control of the Regional Publicity Officer stationed at Nagpur.

The District Publicity Officer keeps close contacts with officials, social workers, press and the main currents in the public life in the district and acts as liaison between the people of the district and the Government. He arranges the sale and distribution of publications of Directorate of Publicity as well as those of the Government of India. He is incharge of the Information Centre located at the district headquarters.

The Information Centre provides a reading room where newspapers, magazines, maps and charts showing the progress of various developmental activities in the district are kept. Questions from the readers are duly replied with a view to guiding them.

Rural Broadcasting: Under the contributory scheme of community listening a village desirous of having a radio set is required to pay Rs. 175 (Rs. 150 in case of main sets) as installation contribution in addition to Rs. 90 as maintenance contribution. The installation and routine maintenance of radio sets is carried out by the Rural Broadcasting Units located at various places in the district. In Akola district, there are in all 4 maintenance units, one at Akola, second at Washim, third at Akot and fourth at Murtizapur, the last still functioning at Akola. A supervisor is in charge of a Rural Broadcasting Unit. He is provided with requisite testing equipment etc., to attend to routine and minor repairs to the radio sets. A departmental motor van is stationed at each Rural Broadcasting Unit for transport of radio sets, allied accessories and staff to and from the villages in connection with the installation and maintenance of the radio sets. The community receivers installed in the villages are specially designed for the purpose and a majority of these receivers are regularly maintained and used batteries are replaced by new ones. The radio sets are installed in public places such as the village panchayat office, the village chawadi, the village library, etc. In 1969-70, 1,167 villages were provided with radio sets under the above mentioned scheme [The scheme was However curtailed on account of economy measures since March 1976.].

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