Should DD have a news channel or not?

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JULY 30. If there is one area where the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting appears somewhat in agreement with the Expenditure Reforms Commission (ERC) on the issue of downsizing its staff strength, it is Prasar Bharti.

Conceding some ground to the ERC, the Ministry has accepted some of its recommendations vis-a-vis Prasar Bharati in principle. However, there is a major bone of contention over the question of whether or not the Doordarshan bouquet should include a news channel. The ERC is of the view that Doordarshan should confine itself to DD1 and DD2 and give up its continuous news channel as private news channels are being ``accessed extensively through cable services''.

The Ministry's argument is that the Prasar Bharti has to ``discharge its functions of a public service broadcaster'' and provide services which private channels guided by profit motive will not do. The Ministry has taken the view that the proliferation of private news networks had given the Prasar Bharti the additional mandate of setting a benchmark through its programmes for private players.

Accepting the Commission's contention that the transmitters were over-staffed, the Ministry has decided to engage an agency to work out staffing norms for all cadres except the Civil Construction Wing and Programme Staff.

However, even here, the Ministry has differed with the ERC. Instead of entrusting the review to a ``reputed management agency'', it has been assigned to the Staff Inspection Unit on the premise that since new norms will have to approved by the Government, it was best that the review also be carried out by a government agency. While accepting the ERC's suggestion that Prasar Bharti allow optimum utilisation of its production studios by renting them out to private players, the Ministry has questioned the Commission's argument that this would bring about a staff reduction.

The Ministry's position is that while the revised staffing norm might bring about a staff reduction, the same cannot be expected from renting out the studios as staff would be needed to man the facilities.

In agreement with the Geethakrishnan Commission's suggestion that a considerable amount of air time on All India Radio remains unused, the Ministry has drawn the attention of the Finance Ministry to the fact that open tenders had been invited for allotment of time slots on local radio stations twice. However, since there were no takers, alternate strategies were being worked out to ensure better utilisation of AIR slots.

Officials say the impact of the ERC recommendations would be limited as 7,500 of the 49,000 sanctioned posts were lying vacant in the Broadcasting Corporation of India where the engineering staff strength alone is 36 times that of international standards.

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