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State broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) says it is trying to induct media professionals into its news divisions at salaries comparable to the best in the sector. A similar process is said to be on at professionalising All India Radio (AIR).
Both have faced debilitating levels of vacancies in recent years. According to an answer to a Parliament question, the information and broadcasting ministry put the number of vacancies at nearly a third of the sanctioned strength of AIR and DD – 16,764, of a sanctioned strength of 46,756. This shortage has impacted news operations as well. According to another reply on July 24 to a Parliament question, AIR has 515 “part time correspondents”, hired on annual contracts at the district level.
An official associated with the process of revamping Doordarshan says the focus is on recruiting “quality” professionals through an exhaustive written test and interview. “We are not in the game of Television Rating Points but are trying to improve the watchability of the channel,” the official said.
New additions include enriching the morning and evening prime time with bulletins on ‘speed news’, five-minute capsules with 15 news stories, and introducing financial news bulletins. Then, there is a weekly Sanskrit bulletin and another called ‘Good News India’ that focuses on positive stories from across the country. “We are not into breaking stories or sensationalism. Our job as a public broadcaster is to talk about developmental communication and cover news comprehensively,” an official said. DD officials say when most other news channels focused on a spate of farmer suicides in the wake of Gajendra Singh’s death at an Aam Aadmi Party rally in Delhi, and “in a sense perpetuating suicide”, Doordarshan went to the fields to interview farmers who said ending one’s life wasn’t a solution.
Programmes on defence, foreign policy, strategic and economic issues are more frequent as well, showing more regional news and giving inputs to the newly launched DD Kisan.
Earlier, too, Prasar Bharati, supposed to be an autonomous body under the ministry, had hired professionals to run Doordarshan but that was restricted to the top management. Ground work was still done by Indian Information Service officers and contractual employees.
Now, officials said, there was a bigger effort to bring competent professionals at junior levels, while IIS officers manage decision making roles. "We, the IIS officers and professionals from outside, are working as a team," said a senior functionary at DD.
Annual salaries advertised for posts of ‘senior anchor cum correspondent’ with seven years experience are Rs 1.2 lakh, for ‘anchor cum correspondent’ with five years experience Rs 1 lakh, for correspondents with three years experience Rs 70,000, etc.
AIR and DD are the two arms of Prasar Bharati, established by an Act in 1997. Prior to this, both were media units under the ministry.
