Angered by Prasar Bharati’s Defiance, Smriti Irani Blocks Salary Funds for DD, AIR

Lord Nemesis

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https://thewire.in/228862/angered-prasar-bharatis-defiance-smriti-irani-blocks-salary-funds-dd-air/

The Union government earmarked around Rs 2,800 crores in budget 2018-19 towards Prasar Bharati. The allocation is routed through the I&B ministry, which releases money to PB on a month-to-month basis for the salaries of its approximately 5,000 employees.

Prasar Bharati sources say that every month the ministry has been raising queries and creating problems before releasing the money. But since December, it has not released money for salaries, forcing a drawdown of contingency funds.

The crisis, they say, began after Surya Prakash, who heads the ‘autonomous’ institution, started questioning some of Smriti Irani’s actions.

Apart from rejecting the ministry’s demand that Doordarshan pay a private company Rs 2.92 crore for an assignment it says was unnecessarily outsourced, Prakash and his board angered Irani by blocking a move to fill two key editorial posts with journalists whose salaries would have been much higher than PB could bear.

Though the journalists were nominated by a search committee, Irani is said to have personally backed their selection. One of the nominees functions as her “unofficial media advisor”, ministry sources said.

At the Prasar Bharati board meeting on February 15, the I&B ministry’s representative, Ali Rizvi, allegedly threatened to withhold the money for employee salaries. “How dare you talk like this on a budget allocation?”, Prakash is said to have shouted, leading to heated arguments. “The monthly transfer of salaries to government staffers working in Doordarshan and All India Radio is a budget commitment … it does not come from your home,”
 

chetansha

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The govt has released a 'statement'. But no where does it denies the allegations levelled against them.
And in the meanwhile...'mad'am minister was seen
52e4ca4d505e98b4263043a9c0f33783.jpg
f63c6865f9f0fa2c3393624c01b1ca41.jpg
 

blr_p

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Apr 11, 2007
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Storm in a tea cup ?

..or is there more going on behind the scenes

Am a big fan of Prasar bharati, RSTV, LSTV etc
 

Fenix

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Smriti Irani is all words and no action. I wish we had more educated and sincere Ministers.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

6pack

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those prasar bharati staff should black out all the channels or go leave saying they didn't get salary.
 

blr_p

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Wondered what happened to this thread and i am shocked to see everything got deleted.

What is the reason? you had an interesting discussion and we are left with nothing here
 
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Crazy_Eddy

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^ The discussion deteriorated badly in the last few pages. And I noticed there was a new topic of discussion taking place which was perhaps causing that.
There was some decent discussion. If people can be civil, I can restore those posts to a new thread.
 

blr_p

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^ The discussion deteriorated badly in the last few pages. And I noticed there was a new topic of discussion taking place which was perhaps causing that.
There was some decent discussion. If people can be civil, I can restore those posts to a new thread.
I didn't see any deterioration unless you were removing posts behind the scenes. Conversation flows as the discussion goes until nobody got anything left to say

What shouldn't be allowed to happen is if some people don't like what you say they either get the thread locked or deleted

This nonsense goes on on social media all the time, there is heavy censorship in that medium