Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has rejected the Union ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) proposal to appoint a serving IAS officer to its board, and hire two journalists to head the news service units of Doordarshan and All India Radio, said media reports.<\/p>\n
A board meeting headed by Prasar Bharti chairperson A Surya Prakash concluded that accepting the resolutions moved by the ministry would \u201camount to infringing Prasar Bharati\u2019s autonomy\u201d.<\/p>\n
The board held that appointing a serving IAS officer as member (personnel) would go against the norms laid down in The Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990. “The Act clearly says the appointments to the board will be made on the recommendation of a committee headed by the vice president. The chairperson pointed out that if the appointments are made based on the recommendations of the ministry, it would amount to denigrating the office of the vice president and also erode the autonomy of Prasar Bharati,” reported The Hindustan Times quoting an unnamed official.<\/p>\n
Prasar Bharati\u2019s board comprises a chairman, an executive member (CEO), two members (finance and personnel), six part-time members, a representative of the I&B ministry, and the director generals of All India Radio and Doordarshan as ex-officio members. There is no provision to have a serving bureaucrat on the board.<\/p>\n
After the last member (personnel) demitted the office, the charge was given to member (finance) and the position was advertised, but no candidates were found suitable for the post, another PB official told HT.<\/p>\n
The Prasar Bharati board also turned down the ministry’s proposal to hire two senior journalists on top editorial posts at Prasar Bharati: Siddharth Zarabi for the position of head of TV news in Doordarshan News and Abhijit Majumder as chief editor at the Prasar Bharati News Service.<\/p>\n
Zarabi is the executive editor of Business TV India and Majumder \u2013 a vocal supporter of the current government who was recently called out for sharing fake news about the Kasganj violence \u2013 is the managing editor of Mail Today newspaper.<\/p>\n
The board refused to clear their appointment because of the \u201cunjustifiable compensation\u201d suggested by the I&B ministry, said media reports.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The ministry had fixed an annual compensation of Rs 1 crore (Rs 8.3 lakh per month) for Zarabi and Rs 75 lakh (Rs 6.25 lakh per month) for Majumder.<\/p>\n
While the board wants to hire top-class media professionals for the job, the hefty compensation offered to the two journalists couldn\u2019t be justified, said media reports quoting Prasar Bharti board members. “The highest compensation paid to contractuals in Prasar Bharati is about Rs 160,000 a month. To jump from that to Rs 10 million a year cannot be justified. The search committee would like good media professionals to be hired, but the issue is cost. We are a public corporation. Can we hire professionals at Rs 10 million?\u201d said a Business Today report quoting a source.<\/p>\n
The Prasar Bharti board also took exception to the language in the ministry\u2019s communication on terminating the services of all contractual employees. “It sought to question the wisdom of the Prasar Bharati board on these appointments,” an official said, according to the Business Standard. He further said the board was of the opinion that the ministry should withdraw the directives because they were in contempt of the Act governing the body. The ministry “seems to have forgotten that Prasar Bharati is an autonomous corporation”, said the BS report.<\/p>\n
A manpower audit of the PB, as suggested by various committees, including the Sam Pitroda committee, would be conducted soon to identify overstaffed sections, reported HT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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