The Print: New Delhi: Thursday, August 02, 2018.
Content
creators at Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) have threatened to go on
strike ahead of Independence Day to protest against the fact that some of them
have not been promoted for as long as 34 years.
They are also
demanding an end to lateral entry from what they say are unrelated areas for
posts that have been left vacant.
These
positions are reserved for the Indian Broadcasting Programme Service (IBPS), a
specialised cadre set up in 1990 to create content for Prasar Bharati. Lateral
entry is in violation of rules since the IBPS is a professional service.
Any strike
ahead of Independence Day will jeopardise schedules for the public broadcaster
on one of its most important days of programming.
The threat
follows a fresh order for on-deputation appointments to key programme posts in
Prasar Bharati.
Prasar
Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati did not respond to messages or emails sent
by The Print. The information and broadcasting ministry, the cadre-controlling
ministry of the IBPS, too did not reply to questions sent by The Print.
But in an
affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court in 2016, the broadcaster had made its
stand clear, saying they hired professionals from other fields because of a
shortage of specialised programme staffers.
Trouble in
Prasar Bharati
The fresh
order has brought forth the chaos in the ranks of Prasar Bharati blamed on
years of neglect by successive governments, and comes amid reports that the
Centre is planning to disband the body over its purported inefficiency as
India’s public service broadcaster.
According to
officials, there are around 1,048 sanctioned ‘specialised programme’ posts for
IBPS personnel in DD and AIR. Several of these have reportedly been assigned to
officials on deputation from sectors as varied as telecom, the Indian Air
Force, central secretariat, income tax, railways, and defence production and
engineering services, among others.
This, even as
there are barely any IBPS officers at the level of deputy director, director
and deputy director general. Just two of 30 additional director general posts
in the two organisations are held by IBPS officers, while the rest are either
vacant or occupied by personnel on deputation.
A similar
predicament faces programme executives at the lower end of the hierarchy.
Also
recruited through the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), programme
executives are eligible for promotion to the senior administrative grade (SAG) the
most senior IBPS position, equivalent to the rank of joint secretary in the
government of India after 20 years in service, but many have not been promoted
even after 35 years.
Fifty per
cent of IBPS personnel are direct recruits to the first rung of the service.
Twenty per cent are supposed to be direct recruits to the SAG level through the
UPSC, while the remaining are programme executives promoted to the SAG.
According to
rules for the IBPS, programme executives or even IBPS officers are mandated to
have qualifications in art, culture, education, media, publicity or production
of programmes.
Staff
‘demoralised’
A senior DD
producer working without a promotion for nearly 27 years asked why this trend
of lateral recruitment of people without any field experience or qualification
should not be compared to the teachers’ recruitment scam that landed former
Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala in jail.
The scam
pertained to the recruitment of over 3,000 teachers with the use of forged
documents.
“The
government of India is considering lateral entry (at the joint secretary level)
for people from the private sector with 15 years of experience, as they feel 15
years of experience makes a person a domain expert,” he said.
“But here we
have programme specialists denied promotions for over 33 years, despite
vacancies. Instead of promoting them, why are those posts being increasingly
filled up with people with no programming background?”
Another
programme executive, not promoted since he joined the service in 1983, said:
“Which other government department has denied promotion to its staff for
decades? What will be the motivation for employees to work in such a
situation?”
The
situation, the official said, had demoralised them and become a cause of social
stigma.
The
storm’s been brewing
The protest
has been in the works for years. In 2016, a former AIR station director, P.
Raja Rao, had filed a writ of quo warranto in the Delhi High Court against
appointments on deputation to IBPS programme service posts, arguing that they
undermined the UPSC.
Prasar
Bharati’s submission in the high court, cited earlier in the copy, was made in
response to this.
According to
Rao, the absence of a review by the departmental promotion committee for over
25 years had created a situation where several IBPS posts were vacant even as a
large number of eligible candidates “languish for years without promotion”.
Talking to
The Print, Rao said broadcasting was a specialised discipline and needed subject
expertise.
“The IBPS
programme cadre has expertise in various broadcasting domains including music
production, drama production, features, documentaries, development
communication among others,” he said, adding that none of those brought into
the programme service positions on deputation had such expertise.
“This makes
it clear that the appointments are mala fide and based on personal and
political links and… not suited to the professional needs of a public service
broadcaster that is the only source of information for a vast section of
population,” he added.
He said he
had an RTI reply – a copy of which is with The Print – that showed the
on-deputation appointments had been made without a proper selection process and
the UPSC’s involvement.
Rao also sought
to point out that the recruitment board mandated by the Prasar Bharati Act was
not in place.
Earlier, the
director general of AIR, Fayyaz Shehreyar, wrote to the Prasar Bharati CEO
about his displeasure with the appointment of non-field experts and urged a
solution.
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