The information and broadcasting ministry is planning to amend the Prasar Bharati Act in the wake of scams, involving Prasar Bharati (PB Act) CEO BS Lalli and Doordarshan director-general Aruna Sharma, sources have said.
The information and broadcasting ministry is planning to amend the Prasar Bharati Act in the wake of scams, involving Prasar Bharati (PB Act) CEO BS Lalli and Doordarshan director-general Aruna Sharma, sources have said.
This would imply that the financial autonomy of Prasar Bharti would be constrained.
Both are alleged to have been involved in irregularities in giving out telecast rights for the Games to a private British firm. While Lalli is under a CBI probe, the ministry is yet to take a decision on the prosecution of Sharma.
Prasar Bharati was made an autonomous body by S Jaipal Reddy when he was the I&B minister in the short-lived United Front government in 1997. But it has always remained a moot point whether Doordarshan and All India Radio had ever used the right to independence after decades of being the mouthpiece of the government.
The ministry source said there had been no internal audit of Prasar Bharati for many years. “We are not worried so much about the programming. It is least important. What is of greater concern is that the government funds the Prasar Bharati and there has to be accountability for it.”
Unlike the government-funded British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which has a tradition of locking horns with the government, DD and AIR have remained within the confines of an unwritten rule that the government of the day is the political master who cannot be offended.
Though DD and AIR manage to partly fulfil the mandate of a public broadcaster, there is no debate as to whether they can improve what they are doing.
There are also issues with the staff. Though all of them want the privileges of working for an independent corporation, they wish to retain their status as government employees, with its provision of guaranteed employment and other benefits, as it was before Prasar Bharti came into existence.
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