Cook turns producer for DD

A cook, an anganwadi worker, a labourer, a travel agent. They are among the 400 ‘professionals’ chosen by Doordarshan (DD) to produce programmes worth Rs 240 crore for one of its channels.

Updated on: Jan 16, 2010, 24:45:47 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A cook, an anganwadi worker, a labourer, a travel agent. They are among the 400 ‘professionals’ chosen by Doordarshan (DD) to produce programmes worth Rs 240 crore for one of its channels.

The national broadcaster has reportedly picked people with no background in TV as producers for programmes to be telecast on Kashir Channel — DD’s Kashmir-centric channel — from next month.

“I was shocked to find my former cook, Mohammad Abdullah, who is a resident of Uri in the Kashmir Valley, was allocated a programme of 13 episodes,” said Rubi Singh, who owns a production house and has been a producer for DD for two decades. “His qualification was that he works at the home of an influential DD official.”

Singh, in comparison, has been allocated five episodes.

DD has received complaints that among the 400 are an anganwadi worker, Praveena Akhtar, and a businessman, Miyan Jaan. An assistant with a Delhi-based production house also got eight episodes while the production house’s proposal was rejected.

Ananya Banerjee, director of programmes in charge of empanelling producers for Kashir, said she wasn’t authorised top comment.

B.S. Lalli, chief executive officer of Prasar Bharati, the corporation in charge of DD, said the Doordarshan director general was “emphatic the selection process was transparent”. But, he added: “I have ordered a vigilance inquiry into the allegations. If any lapse is found on the part of any DD official, strict action will be taken.”

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni has appointed a private consultant to review Kashir Channel. “All aspects of Kashmir Channel, including allegations of corruption, are being looked into,” a ministry functionary said.

Kashir was launched in 2003 to counter Pakistan television propaganda and generate employment for Kashmiri youth. In August 2009, DD initiated a process to allocate programmes with 75 per cent reserved for producers from the Valley. It got over 1,200 applications.

According to Singh, DD failed to physically authenticate the documents presented with the application forms.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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