GoM meets to decide Prasar Bharati's future

The three-hour meeting of the GoM was headed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Oct 29, 2006, 17:19:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

A financial package for its employees, hiring professionals from the market, tax exemption on public broadcasting duties and waiving-off losses, are some of the proposals being considered by the Group of Ministers to infuse life back in Prasar Bharati Corporation.

In the three hour meeting, the GoM headed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, has reached a consensus on formulating service conditions and pay structure for its employees in consultation with the Ministry of Finance.

A group of Prasar Bharati (PB) employees has represented their case before the GoM on August 25.

The GoM has also suggested that I&B ministry should conduct a study on manpower requirement of the corporation and then offer a financial package to employees to join PB on permanent basis.

At present, the status of employment of PB employees is not clear, whether they are Government of India employees or the corporation employees.

On the issue of complete autonomy, the GoM has made it clear that the government wanted a channel to convey its initiatives to the public and 'create a positive atmosphere' in the country. But, the GOM is not adverse to bringing in professionals from outside to improve the quality of broadcasting in the new competitive environment, said a senior ministry official.

The biggest achievement of the GOM is, however, making the Finance Ministry write off Rs 3,735 crore against revenue deficits.

The Finance Ministry has also proposed to convert the loans of Rs 4,876 crores into equity and reserves. But, the Finance Secretary made it clear that PB should prepare a clear-cut mandate and road map to prevent recurrence of such losses.

Before waiving the losses, the Finance ministry has sought a clear mandate for PB from the GoM—whether it is a public broadcaster supported by the government or it is a financial viable corporation.

Union Culture minister Ambika Soni suggested that the corporation should work to improve its financial viability.

The finance ministry has, however, not accepted the proposal to restore section 22 of Prasar Bharati Act, which allows the corporation to seek tax waiver on income/assets and its services.

The GoM has asked Munshi to recommend specific amendments in the Prasar Bharati Act to implement its decisions.

The ministry is likely to submit its proposal in the next GoM meeting sometime in November

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

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.