Suggesting that Prasar Bharati is not really
autonomous as it should be, a committee appointed by the govt has recommended amendment to the Act of 1990 to
give effective freedom to the public broadcaster with administrative and
financial powers.
The committee, headed by technocrat Sam Pitroda, suggested developing a funding
mechanism for Prasar Bharati to address the need for autonomy with financial
accountability.
It also sought to give the organisation the
power to frame rules and regulations for its employees without requiring
government approval as it recommended absorption of government employees as
full-time staff of Prasar Bharati and hiring skilled professionals.
The report, presented to Information and
Broadcasting Minister Manish
Tewari
in New Delhi on Friday, recommended "amending
the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 where necessary so as to impart genuine and
effective autonomy to the organisation." It also called for reorganisation of the
Prasar Bharati board to make it a professionally managed body effective in
guiding the organisation.
Tewari said his ministry would seriously,
studiously and diligently examine the recommendations. "Enough discussions on these
recommendation have taken place and I hope and we start implementing some of
them if not all of them. We cannot wait for too long to start
implementation," Pitroda told reporters while releasing the report on
Friday. The committee will have a
meeting with the Ministry next week to discuss the report and take it ahead, he
said.
In its report, the committee suggested
complete transfer of ownership and management of assets and human resource to
Prasar Bharati to make the organisation administratively and financially
autonomous of government.
Significantly, it recommended setting up of a
regulatory body to ensure public accountability of the organisation with
respect to all content broadcast on its television and radio network. It should be a sub-committee of the Prasar
Bharati board, the committee said.
The Pitroda committee was the fourth one set
up by the government last February to review the institutional frame work of
Prasar Bharati, its relationship with government and its continuing role as a
public broadcaster.
It made the recommendations based on the
principle that the organisation's "vision must be to become a genuine
public broascaster as against a government broadcaster" as it was supposed
to be.
"We all agreed that the public
broadcaster should look into the public interest and not necessarily at the
government interest. Government interests are equally important, it should have
flexibility to promote government interest either through separate budget but government
should use this infrastructure partly and use other infrastructure," he
said. Batting for its global outreach,
the panel suggested that Prasar Bharati should create a world-class
broadcasting service benchmarked with the best in the world.
"We need to have a global player...we
don't have Indian version of BBC. Today, there is no big source of dependable,
reliable, credible news from India," Pitroda said while highlighting on
this recommendation. It also recommended
monetising of all available archival and other assets of Prasar Bharati to
enhance funding. It further suggested
"undertaking a professional study to develop a funding mechanism for
Prasar Bharati that addresses the need for autonomy with financial
accountability.
"Such a funding model should include
government, internal resource mobilisation and private investment". At
this, Pitroda made it clear that this particular recommendation does not mean
privatisation of the organisation but it more about sharing resources. He also
said the quantum of private investment has not been thought of as yet.
Turning to the issue of content, the
committee sought scaling up the allocation of funds for content generation to
50 percent of the total expenditure within a period of 5-7 years and review of
all existing channels and content of DD and AIR based on their relevance,
output and viability. The committee
encouraged outsourcing of content creation to external producers to attract
high quality and diverse programme and creation of a distinct brand identities
for different TV and radio channels, defining the content strategy for each.
The committee also strongly batted for the
use of social media by Prasar Bharati which can be implemented immediately and
defining a social media strategy for the organisation. It also called for setting up of a 'Prasar
Bharati connect' as a third arm of the public service broadcaster independent
of DD and AIR and mandate it to manage the various social media initiatives of
the organisation. The committee sought
expansion of satellite and digital cable TV operations to meet the obligations
of public service broadcasting. It also
pressed for digitalisation of the present AM radio system to a new radio
transmission system after due evaluation, subject to cost and technical
availabilities.
The committee further suggested greater
involvement of the private sector to expand broadcasting market with a view to
effectively utilise infrastructure being created by Prasar Bharati. Focussing on archiving, it recommended setting
up of a state-of-art digital archives for consolidating and preserving DD and
AIR content. Lastly, it called for
creation of a dedicated, multi-platform channels for dissemination of Prasar
Bharati's archival products.