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NEW
DELHI: With the Group of Ministers (GoM) failing to take up
their issue in its meeting late last month, around 2,000 employees
of All India Radio and Doordarshan are expected to carry through
their threat to march to the Parliament in a demonstration
to protect their present working conditions.
The employees under the aegis of the National Federation of
Akashvani and Doordarshan Employees - an umbrella body of
21 associations representing about 38,000 employees –
had held a three-day relay hunger strike from 26 March in
all state capitals to demand either scrapping of the public
service broadcaster and go back to being a government media
unit, or make suitable amendments in the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting
Corporation of India) Act 1990 to ensure they continue getting
the benefits they now enjoy.
The
action was taken barely six months after they had postponed
the agitation following the setting up of a committee headed
by Information and Broadcasting Ministry Secretary Asha Swarup,
on the eve of the meet of the GoM related to Prasar Bharati.
However, it is learnt that the meeting held on 30 March only
took up financial matters relating to the budget of Prasar
Bharati.
The Asha Swarup committee had been set up in late September
to go into the report of the GoM headed by Home Minister Shivraj
Patil which had earlier recommended that the 40,000 employees
should continue to enjoy the benefits of pension and allowances
that they presently received as government servants on deemed
deputation to Prasar Bharati. The GoM, which in addition to
Patil and I&B Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, includes
finance minister P Chidambaram, culture minister Ambika Soni
and communications minister A Raja.
Federation
chairman Anilkumar S told indiantelevision.com that
the committee headed by Swarup, of which the employees’
representatives are also members, had supported the view of
the GoM in its second meeting on 18 March. He said the committee
had accepted the view of the federation that the basic structure
of Prasar Bharati would not change if amendments were made
relating to the employees in only nine of the 35 sections
in the Prasar Bharati Act.
The act was passed by the Parliament in 1990, but notified
only from September 1997 after the Supreme Court in February
1995 ruled that airwaves were public property and could not
be monopolised. The judgment as a result of a petition by
the Cricket Association of Bengal against the public broadcaster
came at a time when Doordarshan and All India Radio were the
most dominant broadcasters in the country.
The Supreme Court had directed the government and Prasar Bharati
to take a decision about the fate of the 40,000-odd employees
by early August but later allowed more time till October.
Following the order of the apex court in early February, a
committee of officers had been set up to go into the issue,
and has since presented its report to the GoM attached to
Prasar Bharati and headed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil.
Section 11 of the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 is clear that an
option would be given to the employees to opt to remain with
the broadcaster or go back to the government.
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