NEW DELHI: Following a series of on-air mistakes on Doordarshan, all contractual Prasar Bharati staff have been asked to undertake a "skill test" to assess their work.

A coordination squad has been established including senior officials from All India Radio and Doordarshan that has been tasked to prepare a list of contractual employees and submit concrete proposals on skill sets required for different categories of work which will be judged by an independent jury.

The news service division — tasked with reporting news — is first off the block with the process of skill evaluation scheduled to be completed by November 15. The jury is expected to be media professionals who are not government appointees.

Last month, the public broadcaster suffered a series of humiliating moments after an anchor mistakenly pronounced Chinese President Xi Jinping as 'Eleven' Jinping. Then, a reporter used names commonly associated with secessionists like Islamabad for Anantnag and Suleiman Hill for Shankaracharya Hill while reporting on the J&K deluge. Finally, later that week, a picture of former PM and Congress leader Manmohan Singh was used instead of Narendra Modi.

In an internal memo on October 6, Prasar Bharati said there was a gradual disintegration of the programming section. Absence of competent mechanism to recruit new people and a steady retirement of older employees had led to the entire organization resorting to "adhocism" by taking people on contractual or casual employment, it said.

Some sections of employees have opposed this move, shooting off letters to the I&B minister and PM Narendra Modi. Employees under the aegis of the AIR Broadcasting Professionals Association have criticized the move, describing it as discriminatory.

"The method of skill evaluation is flawed. Unlike other assessments, our body of work for the entire year is not being looked at, instead we are being asked to audition. Also, permanent employees have been exempted from the evaluation which is blatantly unfair," a member said.

The association has lodged its protest with the ministry.

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