The Hindu: New Delhi: Friday,
December 09, 2016.
DD not giving
clear picture of money spent on family planning programmes: HC
The Delhi
High Court on Wednesday expressed shock and wondered if there was some
misappropriation of funds when it learnt that Prasar Bharati had no record of
how it used Rs.190 crore allocated by the Union Ministry of Health and Family
Welfare for telecast of awareness programmes on family planning and population
control.
Court
surprised
The court was
even more surprised when Prasar Bharati said it had received Rs.190 crore and
not Rs.160 crore, as stated in an RTI reply by the Union Health Ministry.
Prasar
Bharati submitted that it did not keep any record of how the money was spent as
122 programmes were telecast from 30 different kendras and it was not possible
to collate all the data of expenditure because there were many “hidden costs”.
Details sought
A Bench of
Justice B.D. Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar was hearing a petition by Satyanarain,
who had sought details of how the money granted by the Health Ministry in
2012-13 for family planning awareness programmes on Doordarshan was utilised
and how many shows were telecast.
While the
petitioner had sought a record of Rs.160 crore as per the information received
in an RTI reply from the Health Ministry, Prasar Bharati said in court that it
had received Rs.190 crore and even showed a record of having spent the money.
“How is it
that they [Health Ministry] gave you Rs.160 crore and you spent Rs.190 crore?
How has this discrepancy crept in?” the Bench asked the counsel for Prasar
Bharati.
CAG report
“There is a
CAG report to show everything. We have telecast shows. But we don’t keep a
record of how much money is spent on each aspect of a show,” said the counsel,
adding that the Rs.190 crore figure had been reached as there were certain
“hidden costs”.
To this, the
Bench remarked: “If you don’t have record of expenditure from that Rs.160 or
Rs.190 crore, that means anyone can come take out the money and go. You must be
having some record on how much you spent on production, on stage, etc.,
otherwise you can receive Rs.190 crore and spend it wherever.”
“We will
simply say that Doordarshan is unable to give a clear picture of amount
received and spent. You are not giving satisfactory answers. Why do you want to
hide things,” the Bench asked as Prasar Bharati said collecting information
sought by the petitioner would lead to diversion of funds.
On Prasar
Bharati saying that RTI Act does not apply to information which is not
available, the Bench said this is a case of information not being collated and
“it is about money for which there is no information”.
The Bench
asked Prasar Bharati to collate all information on how the money was spent and
fixed the matter for hearing on January 25.
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