Prasar Bharati will have to wait for autonomy

With the model code of conduct soon to be in force, the chances of the Pitroda Committee's recommendations being implemented are slim

In the last week of January, a committee headed by Sam Pitroda, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's advisor on public information, submitted its report on restructuring the operations of Prasar Bharati, India's public broadcaster. The mandate given to Pitroda almost a year ago was to suggest measures to make the broadcaster profitable and streamline its operations. (Every year, Prasar Bharati's revenues fall short of its expenses by about Rs 500 crore; the shortfall is made good by the government.) However, according to Prasar Bharati officers, the submission of the report was deliberately delayed by more than two months, despite it being ready, so that the current government will not have to implement any of its recommendations because the Election Commission's model code of conduct for the general elections will soon kick in. The general view is that the government doesn't want to give up the captive medium, especially when it needs all possible help for the upcoming elections.

The need to free the broadcaster from the clutches of the government has been felt for long. But the Union information & broadcasting ministry has resisted any such attempt. It even questioned an attempt by Prasar Bharati to convert four Hindi channels of Doordarshan - Lucknow, Jaipur, Patna and Bhopal - into 24-hour channels in order to generate additional revenue. This prompted Prasar Bharati CEO Jawahar Sircar to write to Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari last year. "Is there any serious displeasure in the ministry that Prasar Bharati is reviving these four moribund kendras in the Hindi belt after decades of de facto inactivity and continuous drainage of the public exchequer," wrote an irate Sircar. "[Thus] attempting sincerely to bridge the huge gap or annual loss of Rs 66 crore, trying to optimise utilisation of properties of 56,000 square metre valued at approximately Rs 418 crore, utilising 1,163 employees in these four stations when two studios each were telecasting for 2-3 hours a day?"

It was only recently that Tewari and Sircar patched up.

Over the last five decades, five committees have worked on restructuring the operations of Prasar Bharati. It was only in 1996 that the government finally notified the Prasar Bharati Act which established a broadcasting corporation comprising All India Radio, or AIR, and Doordarshan. All the assets and liabilities (including lawsuits) of these two organisations were transferred to Prasar Bharati. The Pitroda Committee has set forward 26 recommendations across areas such as human resources, archiving, autonomy and funding among others. A key recommendation is to set up a global network on the lines of BBC. "We are looking at making Doordarshan attractive for the wider diaspora and to the entire world," Tewari said at the government's annual conference of non-resident Indians in January.

But does it have the finances to do that? Doordarshan has lost viewership to private channels across genres: general entertainment, news and sports. AIR too is up against several private radio channels. All this has crimped Prasar Bharati's earnings from advertising. In 2012, the government had to write off Prasar Bharati's debt amounting to Rs 12,000 crore. The debt was largely caused by overdue spectrum fees, the hefty salary bill for 49,000 employees (currently, it has 33,000 people on its rolls) and capital investments that included digitizing its terrestrial network across the country. Even after the write-off, its expenses, according to industry experts, need correction: over 70 per cent of Prasar Bharati's expenditure is on engineering and technical services (it operates 21 Doordarshan channels and 326 AIR stations) and less than 20 per cent on content. Globally, most broadcasters earmark over 60 per cent of their expenditure for content. The Pitroda committee has suggested that the allocation of funds for content be raised to 50 per cent of the total expenditure in five to seven years.

An expert, who was hired by Prasar Bharati last year to revamp Doordarshan's prime-time news, says that the government lacks the will power to revamp the broadcaster. He quit in three months, after the government raised concerns about the content. His message was unambiguous: if Prasar Bharati wants to garner more viewership, and therefore more advertising revenue, it needs full autonomy to shape content.

How far does Pitroda favour full autonomy? "The government does need a vehicle to promote its views and we have to take care of that. We can't take funding, have our autonomy and not have a separate independent mechanism for government to promote its own messages and welfare measures," Pitroda said at the press conference on 25 January, after submitting his restucturing report. He has suggested a balance between broadcasting government content and government control. Additionally, in a bid to cut down its dependence on the government, the committee has recommended that Prasar Bharati monetise some assets to generate revenue. The process could help Prasar Bharati generate more than Rs 2,000 crore It has offices - and hence real estate - at prime locations in more than 2,000 cities and towns in India.

The Pitroda Committee has also recommended that Prasar Bharati be given the power to frame rules and regulations for its employees without seeking the approval of the government. This could help downsize the roll call and contain the wage bill. It so happens that a large number of its employees are old and the broadcaster is keen to replace them with younger faces. "We have a lot of people in the 50-55 bracket. There is natural attrition since more than 1,200 people retire very year. We need younger people," Sircar had said earlier. Autonomy will help Prasar Bharati "undertake a comprehensive manpower audit and HR planning to map workforce requirements for the future in line with its mandate," the Pitroda Committee says.

The government is unlikely to take any immediate decision with the elections only a few months away. Prasar Bharati's woes will likely remain for some years to come.

PITRODA RECOMMENDS

* Reorganise the board to make it a professionally managed body and more effective

* Complete transfer of ownership and management of assets and human resources to Prasar Bharati to make it administratively and financially autonomous of government

* Amend the Prasar Bharati Act to impart genuine and effective autonomy to the organisation

* Monetise all available archival and other assets of Prasar Bharati as soon as possible

* Undertake comprehensive manpower audit with a re-deployment plan

* Scale up allocation of funds for content generation to 50 per cent in the next 5-7 years

* Create distinct brand identities for different TV and radio channels and define strategy for each

* Involve private sector to utilise infrastructure built by Prasar Bharati to enable faster growth

* Create world class broadcasting service benchmarked with the best in the world, using next-generation technologies and business models

* Define and execute a social media strategy