Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has asked the media to consolidate India as a plural, inclusive and progressive society. Inaugurating the National Media Centre in New Delhi on Saturday, Dr Singh said the media has a special responsibility to assess, tackle and overcome the challenges that socio-economic changes have brought about.

He said the media are not only a mirror of business activity but also a reflection of the entire society. The Prime Minister said the state-of-the-art Centre will be a single window facility to fulfill the needs and requirements of the media.

Speaking on the occasion UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi hoped, the facility will act as a bridge and nerve centre between the government, media and people.

AIR correspondent reports, equipped with the latest technologies of information dissemination, the Centre has been planned on the lines of media centres in some of the prominent capitals of the world such as Washington and Tokyo.

Located at 7-E, Raisina Road, it is in proximity to Rashtrapati Bhawan, government offices, Vigyan Bhavan and the Parliament House.

The media centre will have offices of the Press Information Bureau as well as special facilities for media.

It has a press conference hall for 283 media persons, a briefing room for about 60 persons, 24 work stations for journalists, a library, media lounge and cafeteria.

The press conference hall and media lounge are wi-fi enabled.
Among the facilities provided at the centre are optic fibre internet backbone with redundancy, mini-data centre for application development and hosting webcast, including live webcast, Video feed to TV channels, IT facilities to media persons in work area and lounge, internet telephony and AV Video Wall.