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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, JUNE 30: It’s a Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) flopshow that the Ministry on Health & Family Welfare pays for. The HealthMinistry spends over Rs 10 crore annually on the salaries of some 400 peoplein I&B Ministry who are supposed to make family welfare-related publicitymaterial.
The Health Ministry is paying the salaries of 160 men in the DAVP, 40 in theFilm Division, four in the Song & Drama Division, over 100 people in theDepartment of Field Publicity, 36 units with an average of three people inAll India Radio, and one person in the PIB.
Health Ministry officials say former Health secretary Y N Chaturvedi raisedthe issue when he was with the Ministry but has conveniently forgotten aboutit now that he is I&B secretary.
Chaturvedi, on his part, says the Health Ministry just pays the salaries ofpeople in DAVP, Song and Drama Division and field publicity, and not in FilmDivision, though the Health Ministry claims otherwise. "But if the Ministryof Health wants to pay for the work done and not the salaries of thepersonnel, it’s fine with us," he says. "They should make a request, whichthey haven’t done so far."
The allocations for salaries to these I&B media units, including the filmdivision, was Rs 844 lakh in March 2000. Additional money – like Rs 4 crorefor the spots on Pulse Polio – are given to these media units depending onthe projects they undertake.
The Health Ministry spends Rs 80 crore annually on public-interest messages,of which roughly Rs 10 crore is given to district units across the countryto popularise health programmes, the same as that allotted to the mediaunits of I&B Ministry to do nothing.
In addition to this Rs 10 crore, the Health Ministry pays Prasar Bharati Rs5 crore annually for 30 second prime-time spots on Doordarshan. These spotscame free before the Prasar Bharati days.
I&B Minister Arun Jaitley, who today held forth on how to bring about asocial revolution through radio and TV at a Ministry of Health review of theNational Population Policy, cringes at the idea of giving free spots topressing health issues like family planning and AIDS control.
"The Health Ministry is charged half the market rate, so they should notcomplain," he says. "Anyway, budget allocations are made keeping publicityin mind, and anyway, the money is the Government’s, so it does not matterwhich ministry spends it."
