HRD films on literacy under scanner

HRD minister Arjun Singh this week directed review of the films for creating awareness regarding adult literacy after several national film award winners cried foul over the selection process, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 16, 2009, 24:30:47 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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HRD minister Arjun Singh this week directed review of the films for creating awareness regarding adult literacy after several national film award winners cried foul over the selection process.

The Directorate of Adult Education had empanelled 71 filmmakers from a list of over 350 for making movies for adult literacy programme but had not included eminent film-makers like Himanshu Malhotra, Kishore Dang, Nadira Babbar, MA Zauki, Suhail Illyasi and Mikey Kapoor.

Proposals of some of them were rejected on the ground of disk error, a reply to an RTI application by filmmaker Pradip Sinha had revealed. “If the ministry would have informed us the ground for rejection we would had provided a new disk,” Sinha told HT when contacted.

A deeper look at RTI reply revealed that of the 16 firms, which were given work worth Rs 5.6 crore between 2006 and 2008, at least half, were not empanelment this time. “This is a clear indication that the quality of the work last time was not upto the mark,” said a senior filmmaker, who was not willing to be quoted fearing blacklisting by the government.

But, two of the rejected firms got into the selection list under a different name of the firm. “The application was in name of an immediate family member,” a filmmaker, requesting anonymity, said.

Moreover, the filmmakers in the representation to the HRD minister Singh said the entire selection process was not transparent with less than five minutes given to consider each proposal, which was not adequate to judge a visual proposal.

When contacted Director, of the directorate, RK Bhat said the issue was being sorted out. “HRD minister has asked us to review the entire process,” he said, while terming the allegation as malafide by those who were not empanelled.

What remains an area of concern was that during the period when the ministry spends Rs 5.6 crore on making short movies, India’s adult literacy rate improved by just by one percent.

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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