There are few directives given by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to public broadcaster Prasar Bharati. These directives are rejected by Prasar Bharati calling them the contempt of the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990. The board of the public broadcaster gave this statement in order to defend their autonomy.
The protest came on termination of the services of all contractual employees of Prasar Bharati. As both Doordarshan and All India Radio have many employees who work on contract. If they would be sacked without arranging for alternatives then organizations would collapse.
A proposal came in terms of filling up of the vacancy of Member (Personnel), a whole-time member on the Prasar Bharati Board. The Ministry proposed to hire two senior journalists, Siddharth Zarabi and Abhijit Majumdar. This proposal was withdrawn as the board was not in favour of paying exorbitant compensation package of ₹1 crore to Mr. Zarabi and ₹75 lakh to Mr. Majumdar.
The Ministry’s proposal to appoint a serving officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) as full-time member is against the autonomy of Prasar Bharati. There is also objection on Ministry’s direction to stop all e-auction of channels on DD Free Dish.
What was mentioned in the documents?
“The proposal mooted by the Ministry of I&B was dropped. The chairman and members took strong exception to the wording of the resolution. They also said provisions of the PB Act would be violated and the office of Vice-President would be denigrated.”
