BTV to get new equipment worth Tk 148cr

The government is set to buy equipment worth Tk147.65 crore for digital terrestrial broadcasting for the state-owned television network Bangladesh Television, commonly known by its acronym BTV.

Broadcast equipment companies Studiotec of Belgium and Green Power Systems SRL of Italy have got the job of procurement and installation of these brand new pieces of equipment.

Three separate proposals in this regard were approved in the virtual meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs and the Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase on Wednesday with Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in the chair.

At the end of the meeting, additional secretary of Cabinet Division Abdul Barik gave the details of the proposal and told the reporters that 15 proposals were raised including the proposals for BTV equipment in the purchase committee meeting and all the proposals were approved.

The additional secretary also said that these procurement proposals are a part of digitalising BTV under the Ministry of Information and Broadcast’s ‘Introduction of Nationwide Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting’ project.

BTV was originally established as the East Pakistan branch of PTV (Pakistan Television) in 1964. It is the oldest Bengali-language television network in the world and is the sister to the radio broadcaster Bangladesh Betar, which, along with BTV. Both are owned and operated by the Bangladesh government.