| NEW
DELHI: The fate of the approximately 40,000 employees of the public broadcaster
Prasar Bharati will be decided by August this year, even as a recent survey showed
that majority of the employees in Delhi and Bangalore want to return to government.
Successive
heads of Prasar Bharati have been giving different deadlines for completing the
work of preparing the rules and regulations for the almost 100 categories of employees
in the public broadcaster and present chief executive officer B S Lalli had put
June as the deadline. However,
the supreme court has now stepped in and directed the broadcaster to complete
the work by August.
Lalli told indiantelevision.com that in accordance with the directions of the
apex court, the matter had been referred to a high-level committee of officers
which will give its report to the Group of Ministers set up to guide Prasar Bharati.
He
said that Section 11 of the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 was clear that an option would
be given to the employees to opt to remain with the broadcaster or go back to
the government. Reacting
to the survey which had shown that 98 per cent of the employees in Delhi and Bangalore
wanted to go back to government service, Lalli said this was no surprise since
there were certain guarantees and perks in a government job which gave a sense
of security to the employees. But he said that the broadcaster would be able to
give similar security once the work of preparing the rules and guidelines for
each cadre of employees was completed. The
opinion poll conducted by Akashdarshan Backward Classes Employees Association
(ABCEA) on May Day said the employees cited ‘extreme dissatisfaction’
with their working conditions, uncertainty and poor career prospects as reasons
for their wanting to return to government service. A total of 664 programme staff
including 94 from Bangalore responded to the opinion poll. The views of some retired
employees of the public broadcaster were also elicited.
Lalli said in answer to a question that though the salaries were largely being
borne by the government from non-plan expenditure, Prasar Bharati was contributing
around Rs 3 billion for this from its own resources. | 
