Will DD, All India Radio ever cease to be govt mouthpieces?

Will the UPA government have the guts to free Prasar Bharti of its clutches in an election year? It has made all the right noises so far and even constituted a panel headed by Sam Pitroda to study Prasar Bharti and make recommendations on its overhaul. Pitroda is widely expected to recommend that Prasar Bharati be made autonomous, as was desired by Parliament when it passed the Prasar Bharati Act. This will ensure that Prasar Bharti becomes a genuine public service broadcaster, benchmarked with global peers like BBC instead of remaining merely a government mouthpiece.

But autonomy will mean Prasar Bharti ceases to be under the control of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Will Pitroda’s recommendations be followed? Speaking to Firstpost, Pitroda was careful with his words. “Autonomy is something everyone has strong views on. It is a very tricky, complex issue”. He said a comprehensive report on restructuring Prasar Bharti will be submitted by him in the next 10 days. “The report has been finalised. We are looking at eight areas (which can be overhauled). These include organisation, human resources, finance, technology, content, social media and archiving. Autonomy is also a subject under study”.

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[caption id=“attachment_646327” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Doordarshan logo in this file photo. Image from Wikimedia.[/caption]

Pitroda said the aim is to make Prasar Bharti valuable to society, make it a true public broadcaster. The interesting part of what Pitroda will perhaps recommend is a comprehensive strategy on social media use for Prasar Bharti besides perhaps also suggesting that the public broadcaster be allowed to monetize its assets to fund operations.

But he did not directly answer a question on how the public broadcaster will work if its funding is not going to come from the Ministry. As of now, about half of Prasar Bharti’s bill is footed by the ministry, which is why it feels that it can dicatate terms to Prasar Bharti on all fronts.

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That Prasar Bharti is in dire straits financially is well known. Sample this: A Parliamentary Standing Committee looking into the Prasar Bharti issue recently said that the gap between the revenue projected and the revenue earned by Prasar Bharati has been increasing year after year. During 2011-12 and 2012-13, the revenue projected was Rs 1,650 crore and Rs 1,815 crore but revenue receipts were only Rs 1,409.54 and Rs 1,263.56 crore (upto February, 2013). In 2010-11, the gap between revenue earned and expenditure was Rs 1,633.73 crore which increased to Rs 1,931.03 crore in the year 2011-12 and further swelled to Rs 1,376.32 crore in 2012-13.

“The contention of the Ministry, for justifying the huge gap between the revenue earned and expenditure, that Prasar Bharati being a public service broadcaster is not principally guided by commercial consideration, is not acceptable to the Committee,” this panel said in its report.

If this state of affairs continues, Prarsar Bharti’s coffers will be empty in no time. Sources tell us that Prasar Bharti can easily monetize assets like land, even simple things like using its considerable archives to raise money has in the past been shot down by the Ministry.

A story in the Times of India last month spoke of how Prasar Bharti receives a plan fund of Rs 3,500 crore which is routed through the ministry. It said the Pitroda report will come at a time when “Prasar Bharati and the ministry are engaged in a turf war. The report is likely to suggest setting up of board committee for financial accountability and a parliamentary panel specifically for Prasar Bharati.” Implementation of the Pitroda panel’s recommendations would require amendments in the Prasar Bharati Act.

At any other point in time, Pitroda’s recommendations would have kickstarted a much needed debate of Prasar Bharati. Sadly, given that the elections are almost upon us, not many are betting on the government putting its money where its mouth is.