The cabinet secretary visited one of the blocks where Interactive Training Programme was being conducted. He also saw the JDCP programme in Dumpada, one of the villages of Jhabua and talked to the Sarpanch, women and children. During the visit, a demand was raised by district and state officials that JDCP should cover the entire tribal region instead of just 150 villages. The cabinet secretary agreed and an expansion plan was worked out and implemented.

Installation of community TV sets in all the 612 gram panchayats in jhabua is now in progress and very soon the entire district will be covered.the decision had also been taken to expand the project area by covering two adjoining districts of Dhar and Barwani. 200 villages in each of the districts have been selected and installation of the TV sets is in process.

In Dhar, of the 13 blocks, 7 blocks with a concentration of tribal population have been selected. These are Sardarpur,Tirla, Gandhwani, Bagh, Kukshi, Dahi and Umerban.

In Barwani all the 7 blocks have been covered under the expansion since all are tribal dominated. These are Barwani, Rajpur, Thikri, Sendhwa, Pansemal, Niwali and Pati.

Handing over to MPAA
JDCP has completed four years and now handing over its operation to the state authorities MPAA, Bhopal, the nodal agency for Government of Madhya Pradesh is in process. The state government has set up a Satcom Centre at MPAA. The gradual process of transferring production work from DECU, Ahmedabad, to MPAA began in October 1998 with MPAA being responsible for conducting Interactive Training Programmes (ITPs). In the initial stage DECU producers and engineers went to Bhopal to support MPAA staff to conduct talkback programmes smoothly. MPAA has successfully conducted 47 ITPs between October 1998 and February 2000. Soon the complete operational responsibility will be passed on to the state.