Prasar Bharti plagued by fund crisis: CEO

JAMMU, NOV 21: Prasar Bharti is yet to take a final shape due to the absence of concrete rules and fund crunch, which has left several cruci...

JAMMU, NOV 21: Prasar Bharti is yet to take a final shape due to the absence of concrete rules and fund crunch, which has left several crucial posts like of Member (Finance) vacant.

Talking to media persons here today, O P Kejariwal, Chief Executive Officer (Acting) of Prasar Bharti called the present phase transitory and said that he was trying to “stabilise” the situation.

He said that though the work of Doordarshan and AIR had increased tenfold in the past 15 years, the programme staff was virtually the same. “Sixty-five per cent posts of programme officers are vacant at present”, he said.

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Referring to the problems posed by the paucity of staff, he said that 16 FM stations and a number of transmitters that had been completed were awaiting the green signal.

“The problem is being studied in depth by the Staff Inspection Unit of the organisation and the report will be out in six months,” he said.

Responding to a query about the way Doordarshan was seeking to meet the “cultural invasion” andchallenge from private channels, he said that the question required a detailed examination. “As a public broadcaster, Prasar Bharti had certain responsibilities which the private channels did not have,” he said.

The Prasar Bharti chief avoided a direct reply to the question about the “Indianisation” policies of the BJP government. He said some impromptu statements had been made, but the whole issue needed to be thoroughly discussed.

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As part of its efforts to counter the Pakistani propaganda in Jammu and Kashmir, the Prasar Bharti has sanctioned about 70 programmes for the State and is working to increase the power of transmitters here.

He admitted that AIR & Doordarshan signals were weak in some areas of the State but said that special attention was being paid to the matter now.The CEO informed that the government has been urged to treat communication as a core sector and explained the of better and quicker flow of funds.Talking of his one-year work as Director General, AIR, he said that manyinnovative features like news-on-phone and music-on-demand on FM had been introduced.

The AIR, he said, was among the first broadcast organisations to go live on Internet and interactive radio programmes had been started where listeners could ask questions from invited doctors.