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,”
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,”
