NEW DELHI: All India Radio has pursued the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) for early deposition of outstanding dues in order to resume the Gyanvani educational channel.

On 1 August 2001, AIR had informed the government that IGNOU signed infrastructure sharing and consultancy agreement with them for 37 stations of IGNOU’s Gyanvani FM Radio channels. Under this agreement, IGNOU has to pay a licence fee to AIR.

However, IGNOU had discontinued the payment of licence fee with effect from 1 April 2013 resulting in accumulation of outstanding dues of the tune of Rs.21,64,12,770 as of 30 September 2014.

Repeated reminders were sent by AIR for remittance of the outstanding dues and joint coordination committee meeting was held at the Electronic Media Production Centre, IGNOU on 29 October 2013 for the same.

Minister of state for information and broadcasting, Rajyavardhan Rathore gave assurance that AIR could resume Gyanvani if dues are cleared by IGNOU to Parliament.

The notice for discontinuation was issued to IGNOU on 12 September 2014 and thereafter the operation of Gyanvani FM channels was discontinued with effect from 1 October 2014.