NEW DELHI: Employees of Prasar Bharati held a protest meeting to protest the decision of the Board to what they term outsourcing of the direct-to-home platform DD Direct Plus, outside broadcast of cricket on Doordarshan and All India Radio, and procurement and projects under the strategy for New Year.
The National Federation of Akashvani and Doordarshan Employees (NFADE) chairman Anilkumar S told indiantelevision.com that if employees remained silent, both All India Radio and Doordarshan would be sold out to private agencies.
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However, DD sources said there was no plan to outsource DD Direct Plus and the e-auction will be completely transparent.
As a first step, the NFADE resorted to a gate meeting at the Akashvani Bhavan in Parliament Street. This will be followed by similar action at all Kendras across the country on 27 July.
Emphasizing that the proposed amendment to the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act 1990 would not help the broadcaster or its employees, Anilkumar reiterated the stand of the NFADE for repeal of the Act as it did not have any relevance in a scenario where there were over 700 TV channels in the country.
Earlier in a letter to Prasar Bharati Board Chairperson Mrinal Pande in March, Anilkumar and other office bearers expressed happiness that “the Board and the Government finally agrees that the concept of Prasar Bharati is irrelevant/redundant and DD and AIR should be governed directly by the government by repealing the Prasar Bharati Act 1990”.
The letter had been sent on the basis of a newspaper report that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had asked the Board to reverse its order of selections for the posts of DG for Doordarshan, thus placing Tripurari Sharan at the top, and putting Leeladhar Mandloi (currently holding additional charge as DG of DD) at the top spot for AIR DG, though the Board had put his name at number three in its selection.
