ISLAMABAD - Minister for Religious Affairs and Inter-faith Harmony Sahibzada Noorul Haq Qadri on Monday said that all the stakeholders have agreed to set up the Quran Board for publication of error-free Holy Book.

Talking to the media after the meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Inter-faith Harmony, the minister said the initiative was aimed at ensuring exact and correct printing of the Holy Quran at the national level.

Meanwhile, the Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Inter-Faith Harmony unanimously passed a bill to further amend the Publication of the Holy Quran (Elimination of Printing and Recording Errors) Act, 1973. The committee, met here with Member of National Assembly Asad Mahmood in the chair, was told that there was no national-level department for protection and standardization of printing of the Holy Quran. The body underlined the need for establishing a national-level Quran Board for this holy purpose. It was further told that there was no law to recycle old Holy pages by ensuring their sanctity.

Says initiative is aimed at ensuring exact and correct printing of the Holy Quran at national level

The bill would ensure the recycling of old pages of the holy book in a respectable and responsible way. Later, the minister, in his media talk, denied the allegations leveled against him for renting out the old building of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Inter-faith Harmony at Melody. Terming the allegations ‘baseless’ and ‘unfounded’, he said the same building was rented out against an amount of Rs 1.4 million in 2018 when he was not the minister of religious affairs. Now, its rent was increased to Rs 6.4 million, he added.

pvt TV channels to pay for showing content of PTV Parliament

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Monday told the committee concerned of Senate that a proposal had been finalized to charge private television channels for live telecast of the Parliament proceedings.

The private TV channels would have to pay for showing contents of the PTV Parliament so that the state-owned channel could be run on sustainable model through income generation, he said in the Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting’s meeting presided over by Senator Faisal Javed Khan. Fawad also asked the committee to propose whether the Parliament should bear the expenses of showing live proceedings of parliament. He gave example of BBC which had been charging 100 pounds for its services. Some channels of the PTV were already operational under public private partnership and producing positive results, he said while citing example of the PTV home which generated a profit of over Rs one billion.