Prasar Bharati contractual employees seek job regularisation

A delegation of Prasar Bharati contractual employees today met Union Minister Jitendra Singh and sought regularisation of their job besides additional benefits like health insurance and provident fund, available to other central government employees.
In a memorandum submitted to the Minister, the delegation said that they had been working in various Doordarshan channels and programme stations spread across the country for more than a decade and paid a meagre salary ranging from Rs 17,000 to a maximum of Rs 25,000 per month, which, is too less to make ends meet.
The memorandum said that the number of such category of employees spread all over India is around 500 and they are highly qualified with most of them having specialised degrees in mass communication, journalism, etc.

"But in spite of that, they are paid a consolidated salary without any additional benefit like health insurance, provident fund, etc. Available to other employees in the government," an official release said.
Another grievance expressed by the employees was that while in other departments of the government, there is some mechanism of regularisation of services of employees falling under similar categories. They said, that in their case, even after putting in service for several years, there is no mechanism in place for regularisation of their services, it said.
"As a result, they feel discriminated in comparison to their counterparts in other departments who are holding similar position for the same length of service but are paid better off," the release said.

The employees also said that in 2003 they were, to begin with, recruited by Broadcast Engineering Consultant India Ltd (BECIL)--an enterprise of Government of India, but subsequently, their contract was transferred to Prasar Bharati.
Thereafter, they said, they were facing constant uncertainty of job because after their contract came to an end in February 2014, they were being kept on extension which was allowed only by a period of one month at a time, as a result of which they were under constant sense of insecurity, it said.
After hearing to the grievances put forth by the delegation, Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, said that their case would be forwarded to appropriate authorities in the government.