AIR should be completely funded by govt to ensure sustainability: Outgoing DG

Asserting that "sustainability" is among the biggest challenges facing All India Radio, its outgoing Director General Fayyaz Shehryar on Tuesday said the public broadcaster should be completely funded by the government to ensure its content is always aimed at serving people and is not revenue driven.

Shehryar, who retires on Tuesday after an over five-year stint as DG of AIR, said public service broadcasters, wherever they are, are funded completely by their respective governments.

"Our government has also been very generous as they are paying us the wage bill of those employees who are on deemed deputation, they are also paying us the money for infrastructure development. But then operation and maintenance of a huge network also means a lot," he told PTI in an interview.

Asked about the challenges facing AIR, he said, "Sustainability. When we became Prasar Bharati, ideally and theoretically, we should have been able to fend for ourselves. But what happens is that All India Radio is wedded to the mandate of public broadcasting, and what is public broadcasting? It is altruism as against hedonism."