‘Clean Feed’ policy effective from today, what does this mean?

KATHMANDU: The government is all set to implement the clean feed policy from today.

Clean feed refers to a provision that requires available channels in the country to either make their contents advertisement-free or air advertisements which are developed especially for Nepal using local contents, characters and language.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology provided an update about the government’s preparations to implement the clean feed policy from the day (today) stipulated by the Advertising (Regulating) Act, 2019.

The government has also instructed all the concerned organizations to implement clean feed policy from the given date.

The Advertising (Regulating) Act, 2019, was endorsed by the Federal Parliament on October 24, 2019. Clause 2 of section 6(1) of the act has mentioned of a provision that talks about providing broadcasting and publications without any advertisement.

As per the act’s provision in sub-section 2 (1), within one year of the endorsement of the act, those organizations that have inked an agreement with foreign channels to broadcast those channels through downlink have to broadcast or publish such channels without any advertisement (clean feed).

The ministry has also stated that it will take action as per the prevailing law in case any company is found not implementing the clean feed policy.

Similarly, the statement has also informed that the Broadcasting Foundation of India in mid-September had requested the Nepal government to postpone the implementation of the clean feed policy by another six months.

The foundation had submitted the letter seeking a six-month extension stating that there would be many technical and managerial problems if the policy was introduced immediately due to the coronavirus pandemic. It had requested the Nepal government to wait till the situation normalizes.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology released the recent notice after a month of the Indian correspondence.

Though the government has announced about implementing the clean feed policy, it has not yet formed any Advertisement Board as per a provision prescribed in the act.