HASN’T the time come to take a good look at the functioning of Prasar Bharati and ask whether the time has not come to wind it up and let its component units like Akashvani and Doordarshan revert to their original home, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting? When the idea of Prasar Bharati was first mooted, it took some time for it to get support. It was, therefore inevitable that though the Parliament of India passed an Act to grant ‘autonomy’ to the just-formed Prasar Bharati in 1990, it was not formally empowered till September 15, 1997.
Twelve years have passed and the institution is still in the doldrums. It started on a low key with such stalwarts as Romila Thapar, Abid Hussain and UR Rao the space scientist as members and Nikhil Chakravartty as chairman. Soon the Board began to lose its part-time members, for one of them, BG Verghese, to say that it has been reduced to a “sign board” with no personal of financial powers and only notional autonomy.
Indeed, the then I&B Minister, Pramod Mahajan was frank enough to say that Prasar Bharati was, and must remain, a government organ! In his book The First Draft, Verghese concedes that autonomy was never given. The first chairman of the Board, Nikhil Chakravartty, passed away early. The second, UR Rao found it necessary to resign on personal grounds. The third, myself, was relieved of the post for being too assertive, through an ordinance which laid down that no candidate can be eligible to chairmanship if he was over 75 years of age. I was appointed chairman when I was 82! The fourth, Arun Bhatnagar, a retired IAS officer and reportedly a Sonia Gandhi candidate, early in his time resigned after an alleged clash with the CEO, an IAS officer much junior to him. Since 1997, no CEO has allowed the Board to decide policy, subtly during the earlier years and blatantly, in the last five years, obviously with the knowledge and consent of the Ministry.
The current CEO is reported to be notoriously offensive. The Board takes up some matters and its members do some plain-speaking but the Minutes are not recorded, and if they are, they don’t meet the Board’s approval. This has apparently been going on for a long time. Charges of financial irregularities have been levied against the CEO. In a lengthy article in The Hindu ( September 19), Sevanti Ninan, a well-known media commentator pointed out that the Central Vigilance Commission “has found colourful examples of autonomous functioning by the CEO and his colleagues, amounting to questionable financial dealings”.
The Prasar Bharati Board had apparently approached the Delhi High Court which put the CVC on the job of investigating the charges. in an article in The Indian Express (November 12) BG Verghese noted that what “needs public airing and correction is the hijacking of Prasar Bharati by its CEO in defiance of the Board under whose authority he statutorily functions”. The Centre, he said, has decided to impeach the CEO who has been charged with financial and procedural irregularities and acting beyond his authority, but is awaiting his response to a Show Cause before proceeding further. As matters stand, it is the CEO and not the Prasar Bharati Board runs the organisation, though the Prasar Bharati Act clearly states that “the Executive Member shall be the Chief Executive of the Corporation and shall, subject to the control and supervision of the Board exercise such powers and discharge such functions of the Board as it may delegate to him (emphasis added). The situation today is exactly the other way round. It is the CEO who is running the show-and very poorly at that – in total disregard to the prescribed rules. There are many who believe that the current CEO would not have dared to act so presumptuously without the silent support of the government.
As Verghese put it: “The Centre and Parliament have over the years jointly strangled Prasar Bharati which was established to serve to citizen, rather than merely the consumer and cater to the public of India who demand a voice in governance and are not content to be fed with paid news and sensation”. The Prasar Bharati Act and its personnel policy need complete overhaul. Are there any options? The National Federation of Akashvani & Doordarshan Employees (NFADE) has suggested some draft amendments to the Act, but as has been said of other instances, if the government wants Doordarshan and Prasar Bharati to be free, no amendments are necessary. If the Government wants it not, no amendments are possible. That leaves only one option: scrap the Board.
As it is, Prasar Bharati is a loss-making body. The loss in 2008-2009 was to the tune of Rs. 1,422.10 crore and the provisional loss for 2009-2010 is Rs 1,979 crore. According to NFADE, staff salaries are not paid on time, maintenance of buildings is held up for lack of funds, many stations have no Directors and in general there is confusion prevalent at Headquarters. The NFADE now seems to be of the view that repealing the Prasar Bharati Act is advisable, thereby making the Board irrelevant. It is not that the Act is at fault; it is simply that the government is lackadaisical. It is only the government which can redeem the situation, either by dismissing the CEO or by seeing to it that the incumbent to the post does not take the law into his hands. One understands that a Parliamentary Committee appointed to supervise the work of the Board is cognisant of what is going on, but here again, we see little action. How long can Prasar Bharati continue losing money? It is obvious that antonomy and budgetary support cannot go together. Why should the government provide financial support to Prasar Bharati when year after year it suffers loss? The point has been made the loss occurs because IAS officers who are appointed to chairmanship or to Director Generalship of Doordarshan and Akashvani have no concept of how to run the service. Pranay Roy is not an IAS officer; nor is Rajdeep Sardesai. The jobs should be strictly allocated to professionals who know how to communicate even while they are broadcasting serious stuff, but attractive enough to invite profits. Programmes should be marketable. But this is a task not for IAS officials but for professionals. When will our government ever learn this simple lesson? In the circumstances, Prasar Bharati employees are right. Dismantle the Prasar Bharati Act. It has become a national joke. Enough is enough. Scrap the Act or give the Board total powers. One can’t maintain the Act and refuse the Board autonomy. Doing so is tantamount to cheating.
