The Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Amendment Bill, 2010

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING (SHRI CHOUDHURY MOHAN JATUA) : Sir, I move:

"That the Bill further to amend the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990, be taken into consideration."

SHRI TARUN VIJAY: The Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Amendment Bill, 2010 deals with a very important subject. The numbers of employees in the Prasar Bharati is 38,000 and there are 20 employees associations in it and 12,000 posts are vacant over there. The employees associations are not satisfied with the functioning of the Prasar Bharati and they are demanding its dissolution. The instances of irregularities and corruptions owing to the autonomous functioning of the Prasar Bharati have been reported by the Central Vigilance Commission. It has brought down the credibility of the Prasar Bharati in the country. It has become such government machinery whose most of the programmes are focused on the cities only.

      The Doordarshan had the complete telecast right of the T-20 World Cup Matches. But it did not telecast the matches which caused losses worth of crores of rupees to the Doordarshan. The persons who are appointed in the Doordarshan should be neutral, independent and autonomous and they should not act at the behest of any political party or political ideology. I am very said to say that no special plan or programmes about the tribal areas or eastern areas and the areas like Ladakh are being conceptualised in the Prasar Bharati.

      I would like to give some suggestions regarding the Prasar Bharati. The steps should be taken in the direction of making Prasar Bharati a fully autonomous body on the lines of the Election Commission of India. The employees should be allowed to determine the programmes independently. They should not be affiliated to any political ideology. It should act like an institution which expresses the sentiments of masses. If it limits itself with only some sections of people or some regions, it would violate its very objective and becomes a redundant institution. The programmes of Prasar Bharati should have quality and they should also express discontentment and disagreements of Indian people. It is being run from the revenue collected from the people and it should be answerable to them only, not to any political party or any special government institution. It should express the sentiments of entire region without any ideological bias or apartheid.

      You should, at least, follow the views of Pandit Nehru and accord actual independence and autonomy to Prasar Bharti. You will have to answer the future generations as to what kind of institutes you have constituted. The colleagues of treasury benches talk about the controlled democracy. That controlled democracy reflects in Prasar Bharti. On the one hand you say that we will make Prasar Bharti an autonomous, democratic, independent, secular organization and on the other hand, you try to pressurize the persons having different ideology. If we will make Prasar Bharti a strict and controlled organization, its main purpose will be defeated. It is beyond party politics. Prasar Bharti should be an institute giving voice to every person of India. Besides, a self-mechanism should be prepared so as to make it unblemished. Only then, Prasar Bharti would be able to discharge its duties in real terms.

SHRI SHANTARAM NAIK: I support the Prasar Bharti (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Amendment Bill, 2010 because at present there is no other alternative than to make certain amendments and somehow bring the Prasar Bharti on track. The law enacted during that time was a good law but in the implementation of that legislation somehow we could not pull on. Therefore, today we are experiencing a very handicapped, ineffective Prasar Bharti.

        Goa did not have a full-fledged studio for many years in spite of the fact that it was a laid down policy of the Government of India that in every state capital there shall be a Doordarshan Studio. Till this date we do not have a news bulletin. I had put a question in the House as to what is the status of the news bulletin? Prasar Bharti is different and Ministry is different. A reply came from Prasar Bharti which was read out by the Minister. It said that there is no proposal before the Ministry to have a news bulletin.

        Presently, the Ministry has no other option than to amend a law to bring in the employees on some sort of stable set up. For twenty years employees have suffered. Their status was not known, whether they are employees of Prasar Bharti or whether they are employees of Doordarshan or AIR? The employees had to go to court. Lakhs of rupees were spent for fifteen years in the courts. Therefore, you have done the right thing to bring some sort of amendment to bring stability in this present scenario.

If today there is any channel which you can rely on, it is Doordarshan. What is happening in the country is shown only by the Doordarshan. There is a feeling that we have no control over what has to be telecast. But, there is a concrete law in this country that lays down the programme code and the advertisement code. Section 16 of the main Act lays down punishment up to two years if any provision of Programme Code or Advertisement Code or any other provision of law is violated. Therefore, appropriate prosecution can be launched if printing material or any electronic material is defamatory or otherwise. Of course, we do not have that much of control over international media like Facebook or Twitter. Today, internet readership is increasing very fast. Therefore, something has to be done in this regard. Ultimately, I agree that you have to wind up Prasar Bharati and take the reins.

SHRI PRASANTA CHATTERJEE: The Bill seeks to settle the long-pending issues of the status of employees working in Prasar Bharati. To implement the provisions of this Bill, the management side is very important. Management should be improved. Standing Committee placed on record their unhappiness over the inaction on the part of Prasar Bharati in implementing the Prasar Bharati Act. The Committee has recommended that the employees associations should be assured about their promotional prospects through consultations before the Recruitment Rules and service conditions of Prasar Bharati are notified and the amending provisions are put into operation. But, presently, recognition of all the unions has been withdrawn arbitrarily. The Minister here should see the attitude of the management towards unions. The recognition of the unions should be restored. About the financial viability of the Prasar Bharati, the Standing Committee has very categorically observed that the main reason for insecurity in the mind of officers and employees of Prasar Bharati is Government's own admission of Prasar Bharati being financially unviable before the Supreme Court. So, the financial viability of the Prasar Bharati should be looked into. To improve the financial unviable position, the management should be improved a lot and the recognition of all the unions should be restored.

PROF. ANIL KUMAR SAHANI: Today, in the villages where there is no access of other news channels and Private News Channels poor people watch only Doordarshan, Prasar Bharati and the broadcasting of Doordarshan there is not of good quality. The time limit fixed by you for the state is very short, and time limit for News should be increased so that poor people can get the right information regarding the works being done by the state.In the entire country, Akashwani correspondents (PTC) and Doordarshan correspondents (Stringer) work under Prasar Bharati but they do not get the same wages whereas their qualifications are equivalent. Why the Government is not considering to give them same wages. The correspondents at lower level are on the verge of starvation. To encourage Doordarshan all the facilities should be provided to it.

          Doordarshan could be a big source to check the terrorist and maoist problem in the country. Time should be allotted to the ruling party and opposition so that in the future a new message could be given to the country through Doordarshan and Prasar Bharati from time to time. Prasar Bharati is an important department and I am not in the favour to wind up it. Bring some reforms in it so that people can see the working of Government and opposition through it.

SHRI PYARIMOHAN MOHAPATRA: Doordarshan has been disseminating the culture, tradition and heritage of this country with diverse cultures and Doordarshan is the main source of any authentic news. All India Radio has been creating awareness of different beneficial programmes of Government among the rural masses. But these two have been used as instruments or mouthpiece of the ruling party and the biased coverage that takes place is indeed disgusting at times. Please don't misuse Prasar Bharati. Have your own channel.

        It is really distressing that there are some programmes of Doordarshan where they don't have any advertisements at all. Allow them to do programming independently. Let them go to the market. If the Prasar Bharati is to be created, why go with just some officers on deputation, then deemed deputation? Whose interest are you going to serve? Create an autonomous body. In 2010, commitments were made to the GoM that by such and such date, we will do this about framing regulations. Till today, this has not been done. Broadcasting Council is there in the law; but, it is not implemented. It has to be investigated by this august House as to who are these people who, have chosen not to implement a vital part of the law. After bringing in a Bill before the House, and, after getting it passed by the House, it is not open to the Government to choose and say, I will implement this, or, I will not implement this. I would suggest that a full investigation has to be made, otherwise, the executive can play with the laws passed by this august House.

SHRI SUKHENDU SEKHAR ROY: I support this Bill. This Bill will settle long-standing issues of status of employees working in Prasar Bharati. As the Public Service Broadcaster plays a key role in the society and it should be self-sufficient in all respects, and, must not depend on the Government funding only. There should be multi-channel strategy for the centralization of Prasar Bharati. The Human Resource Policy of the Prasar Bharati also needs to be strengthened to such an extent that innovative programmes could be conceived and introduced to satisfy the younger generation. Our great culture, heritage, and niceties of our pluralistic society should be the guiding factor for the Prasasr Bharati in days to come.

SHRI VEER PAL SINGH YADAV: I support this bill. Now, the uncertainity of the workers of Prasar Bharati would get removed. You have to change your conception. You are also in a competition. There should be control on the channels. Soon you have to bring a bill to control these channels. You have to establish a credibility that Doordarshan will not be influenced by any one. If you do not remove this type of false news, vulgar pictures and vulgar talks from the country, it will vanish the culture and civilization of this country.

SHRI A.W. RABI BERNARD: 36000 employees are working in All India Radio and Doordarshan. One of the concerns of these 36000 human beings is stagnation and more than 800 Programme Excutives of All India Radio and Doordarshan have been stagnating without even a single promotion in their career for over 30 years. These are people who are highly talented and selected after several years of experience. But they are kept in one job for 30 years without any promotion. On the other side so many Doordarshan
Kendras, All India Radio stations remain headless. Consider promotions for these creative people. You are getting enormous support from the Government of India through subsidies. Make use of these extraordinary opportunities and train these people. There is another category of people, called producers. Since they were recruited on a contract basis they are not being promoted. Take care of them. Finally, I have a suggestion. Consider providing time slots to the State Governments. You can give a sense of participation to the State Government. You will get creative talent.

SHRI M.V. MYSURA REDDY: I rise to support this Bill on behalf of our party. Prasar Bharati was created for the sake of autonomy. But this autonomy was misused by the people for their personal use and for their personal benefit. It is not at all useful for the organization. Recently CW Games, telecast was outsourced to SAIs and they got huge benefit of it. If they themselves had utilized that, they would have created an infrastructure of highest quality just like Asian Games. Anyhow, long contentious issues of this service problems by passing this Bill will be solved. With that hope I am supporting this Bill.

SHRIMATI VASANTHI STANLEY: I would like to congratulate the Government on having introduced this comprehensive and straightforward Bill. It has initiated measures to address the long-standing concerns that Prasar Bharati employees have had about their employment status. The amendments envisaged are also commendable. At this juncture, I would also like to emphasise the recommendations of the Standing Committee on the issue of ensuring that the employees on deemed deputation should be considered senior to Prasar Bharati employees, and it would not affect their promotional prospects also. The Government-sponsored medias, Akashvani and Doordarshan, are not commercially viable. But, definitely, the programmes are standard and educative. Media today exaggerates certain events and, in the process, does not fully appreciate others which are equally significant.

          Due to the unnecessary uproar caused by the media on a particular issue, it has not focused on other important issues. Take up the 2G issue nobody is able to arrive at the real loss of revenue in this case. Media frame the charges, conduct the trials and are themselves giving the judgment. In this august House, we are supposed to discuss all matters. We are having restrictions saying that certain matters are sub judice and all that, but the same matters are being discussed in detail in the media by the same people who are also representing the courts.

      The way in which ladies are being depicted on the small screen, I am very much worried. All that is banned on the big screen, is being shown in detail on the small screen. We should have a regulatory system.

SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR: I rise to support the Bill that has been brought before this House. Prasar Bharati was set up as an independent authority that would ensure that the public broadcasting service would not be used for partisan purposes. Dissatisfied employees had in large numbers gone to various courts and, therefore, there had to be a pause while the courts considered matters which were sub judice and it was after the fact that there was a court pronouncement in the year 2006 that a Group of Ministers was formed. What has been proposed in this Bill is an extraordinarily effective course correction.

       This Bill aims at rescuing innocent Government servants. At the time the Prasar Bharati was conceived, there was only one television channel in India, that was Doordarshan. From about 1990 we started getting into the system a huge number of private channels. These channels competing with each other and dealing with information, entertainment and communication. But, there is no consistency in either sticking with the subject or analyzing it in depth, or arriving at a considered solution. Now has come the time when given the fact that there are plenty of private channels, the Government should use its monopoly of the terrestrial system which reaches all those who do not get the satellite system. My pleas with Hon’ble Minister, is that Doordarshan should be converted into a really effective public broadcasting system. It should function like BBC does. Prepare a charter for yourself, Madam Minister, ensure that once you have established this charter and given it to Doordarshan and All-India Radio, then there is no ministerial interference. Let them run it professionally; let them go around and collect advertisements, but not become slaves to the advertisers as almost all our private sector channels are. Let us get to the state where we have Doordarshan functioning as a genuine public service broadcaster.

SHRI PRAMOD KUREEL: Prasar Bharati is a Government-owned institution. It runs on public money. But what we see today is that in the name of providing information or entertainment in our country, we are being provided with vulgar display of human body, bogus information, and concocted facts. The Prasar Bharati is passing through a very big crisis. Any media requires two important parameters to make it run in the long run. One is quality and the other is credibility. In the Private Media, in the name of entertainment, what rubbish is going on. In terms of viewership, we have grown manifold. But, in terms of quality, we have only fallen down. As a Government institution, Prasar Bharati has failed to fulfil it duty. Major reason therefore is the shortfall of personnel to run this institution. If you don't have personnel to run this institution, how can you compete ate with the private channels? If you see the Channels and compare the quality of programmes on Discovery, History or Fox channels, you will see the quality of programmes and the way the merge information and entertainment.

         Rich repository of software, our own singers, intellectuals, leaders, their interviews, programmes of the seventies and eighties are not being used by Doordarshan. Doordarshan is also showing same rubbish serials as shown on private TV channels. There is no creativity. We don't give them creative freedom. How the programmes are commissioned. They are commissioned on the basis of commission. Then, there is the question of mismanagement. 12,000 posts mean the backlog quotas belonging to the SCs, STs and OBCs which are not being filled up for the last so many years.

          Doordarshan’s Urdu channel was closed down two or three months back. Many hon. Members of Parliament have written to the Prime Minister but I am sorry to say that nothing has been done to restart it. We have to understand the ground reality in our country. Doordarshan caters to a class of people who are not covered by these so called private channels. The central point is that you fill up these backlog posts. I can assure you that the SC, ST and OBC people are not short of talent, especially creative talent.

SHRI RAJNITI PRASAD: We should look into the issue that why private channels are being watched more as compared to Doordarshan. Don’t make Doordarshan a government mouth piece. Employees working in Air and Doordarshan are not getting promotion and stagnating on the same post since last 30 years. This also needs to be looked into. Its resources and huge machinery may be used in a way that it may pose competition to other private channels. Doordarshan may be transformed in such a way that it may really become Satyam Shivam Sundram.

SHRI MOHAMMED ADEEB : I think that bill has come late but it is important. It is fact that Doordarshan’s reputation has declined. In the year 1980 serial like Mirza Galib was broadcast but now there is no programme like this. Reason behind this is that employees are not taking interest as they are not getting any promotion in their jobs. I request that hon’ble minister may please look at this issue. AIR and Doordarshan are the only broadcasters who have coverage over the whole country and promote the culture of india. There should be some control over the private channels which are being catched in the urban areas only. I support the bill.

SHRI MOHD. ALI KHAN: Issues related to pay scale and cadre review of employees of AIR and Doordarshan should be resolved. I want to draw the attention towards the fact that there should be some control over the private channels. I would also like to say that employees of AIR and Doordarshan are more responsible in news reading and other programmes while the private news channels leaves no occasion to disrespect even the Parliament. Another issue is related to time allotted to the programmes for farmers while farmers are backbone of the country. Though AIR and Doordarshan are broadcasting programme for farmers but very short duration. Therefore, time for programmes related to farmers should be increased. I support the bill.

       Hon'ble Minister, replying to the debate said: The Prasar Bharati Broadcasting Corporation of India Act, 1990, came into effect on 23.11.1997. The amendment of Section 11 of the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990, as contained in the Amendment Bill, would enable us to settle the matter regarding the status of employees of the Prasar Bharati, which has remained uncertain for more than fourteen years. Employees recruited after 5.10.2007 would be treated as Prasar Bharati employees. Though the purpose of bringing in this amendment was to only amend Section 11 but we are really happy that 16 hon. Members have participated and suggested improvements.We have taken a good note of it. We will definitely take action in future as and when the situation arises.

       I would say that the long-standing issues of the status of employees working in Prasar Bharati will be settled. The corporation will be able to undertake recruitment of manpower. The amendment also empowers Prasar Bharati with most of the disciplinary and supervisory power and control all officers and other employees. The hon. Members mentioned about filling up of vacancies. The case is being processed and the actual recruitment will start very soon. Our sanctioned strength in both, the AIR and the Doordarshan is 48,173. Out of them, the present vacancy position is 11,498.

THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING (SMT. AMBIKA SONI): Doordarshan is a public broadcasting system. We have tried to act to improve the quality of the public broadcasting system without any interference in their content. There is a misconception that the DD Urdu channel has been closed. We are really trying to upgrade the DD Urdu channel. Every single language and dialect spoken in the Valley, Jammu, Leh, Ladakh, Kargil is given some reflection on the DD Kashir channel. As far as issues of employees is concerned this is the first time that we are trying to establish a systematic set up.

        I am not saying this at all that it should be closed. But it is also our duty to review. We think as to how Prasar Bharati , DD, and Akashvani compete with the commercial channels and send important messages. any one fulfilling the criteria as existing today can ask for recognition. On fulfilling this they will be getting recognition. We are trying to put in place 150 channels free-to-air on DD Direct. We are thinking of putting advisory panels so that citizens themselves can decide whether the evaluation committee for various commercial programmes is doing their job or not. So, these are the various steps we have taken and I hope that the hon. Members will support this Bill.

The motion for consideration of the Bill, was adopted.
Clauses etc. were adopted.
The Bill, as amended, was passed.



 

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