Agatha moves Centre on shifting of Tura DDK

New Delhi: Close on the heels of protests against a move to shift the Tura Doordarshan Kendra (DDK) to Shillong, Lok Sabha member Agatha Sangma on Tuesday urged the Centre to desist from such move and instead upgrade the unit.
In a letter to the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Prakash Javadekar, the Tura MP said that while maintaining the status quo, the Ministry should come out with a news programme in Garo language.
In no case this DDK should be shifted to Shillong, she added.
The Tura DDK station is a full-fledged station in its own right and caters to the needs of not only Garos of the whole region but also other scheduled tribes living in the area, Agatha said. It will be a great loss to all if the historic centre is truncated just to a programme producing one, she added.
This DDK promotes the other tribes like Koch, Hajong, Rabha, Boro and Dalu, whose ethnicity is shown through the channel, Agatha pointed out.
Officials in New Delhi are tightlipped about the move to shift the DDK from Tura to Shillong in view of the political tone it has taken. But insiders say that shifting it from Tura to the state capital Shillong is for operational reasons.
The station would soon be stopping its transmission and will function as a Programme Producing Centre instead, sources said.
The Garoland State Movement Committee (GSMC) has already opposed the move of relocating the DDK to Shillong. It has also written to Javadekar asking him to abort the decision.