GOVERNMENT TAKES CONTROL OF DD?

The government last week finally gave the Prasar Bharati (PB) - India's answer to the autonomous BBC - acting chief O.P. Kejriwal the boot last week. It replaced him with an additional secretary in the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry R.R. Shah, who is also a government nominee on the board. Observers say that this is an effort on the part of the BJP-led government to take back control of the state-owned telecaster DD. The other members of the PB board have raised a protest about the government's intentions, but have resigned themselves to his appointment. Earlier governments had made DD near-autonomous under the PB with its own board. But the BJP-led government has since then been determined to bring it back in governmental hands and has allowed amendments, which gave it a lot more autonomy, to the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 to lapse.

Shah, the new PB acting chief feels that the whole setup in DD and All India Radio needs to be overhauled. "My mandate is to streamline both the organisations, especially DD, as the general elections are just a few months away and because of the situation in Kargil area of Jammu & Kashmir where India is literally fighting an open war with Pakistan," Shah said in an interview.

Shah also pointed out that he would be holding meetings to review the programmes on DD and devise ways to augment the falling revenue of DD, at one time the darling of advertisers because of its huge terrestrial reach.

"I would also be looking into the way the commissioning wing of DD functions, specially as lot of programmes commissioned have raised eyebrows," Shah said.

He has, however, been playing down the hype behind his appointment and the allegation that the government has taken control of the PB.

The I&B ministry is also contemplating initiating legal action against Shah's predecessor, Kejriwal, who has gone on to a new posting at the Delhi Nehru Memorial as its director.

The ministry's contention is that Kejriwal withdrew money from DD account to pay off the England and Wales Cricket Board as the last installment of the licence fee payable towards the World Cup telecast on DD. It says that Kejriwal had crossed his brief when he took the decision without its prior permission.

I&B minister Pramod Mahajan on Saturday said, "We'll have to see whether there has been any collusion between DD officials and the various marketing agents like Nimbus and Stracon... the guilty ones will not be spared."