Prasar Bharati Corporation is now learning that autonomy comes for a price. The Department of Space (DoS) has asked it to part with Rs 500 cr for using its transponders or face a blackout.For the Corporation, which bags cricket telecast rights by virtue of being the public service broadcaster, paying back is a difficult proposition. It just doesn’t have the money.Doordarshan beams its 20-odd channels through INSAT 3-C, PAS-10, 2 DT and Thiacom, to name a few — all courtesy DoS. Corporation officials are trying to remind DoS that it is a public service broadcaster and not another PSU. But this argument worked when DD and AIR were little more than mouthpieces of the Government and the DoS didn’t mind.Now it’s preparing to offer its services to private channels for a fee and the Prasar Bharati Corporation is no exception. At market rates, it will have to pay crores for DD and AIR if it’s forced to look out.DD insists it’s still a Government organisation and wants to be treated accordingly. ‘‘The Corporation receives a grant from the Government and we can ask for money to be transferred but that’s just money from the Government circulated back to the Government,’’ said a senior official.DD engineering chief R K Gupta, in fact, asserted that DD and AIR were, for all practical purposes, still a Government department. ‘‘We do understand that an informal request for a fee has to be made. But we are a Government department,’’ he said.But the DoS is not buying this argument. Confirming that the demand had been raised, a spokesperson in Bangalore said the issue is still to be sorted out. ‘‘It was an arrangement between two departments of Government but now the issue is different and the Corporation has to be dealt with accordingly,’’ he said. The issue came up at a recent meeting of the Space Commission but DoS officials are yet to work out the modalities of payment.
