Panel for Prasar Bharati revamp

NEW DELHI, NOV 22: The Prime Minister on Monday cleared the appointment of a three-member committee to restructure Prasar Bharati. The hi...

NEW DELHI, NOV 22: The Prime Minister on Monday cleared the appointment of a three-member committee to restructure Prasar Bharati. The high-level committee will be headed by N R Narayana Murthy, CEO of Infosys, and will include Kiran Karnik, head of Discovery Channel, and advertising guru Shunu Sen.

This committee of crack professionals to review the functioning of Prasar Bharati was the idea of the new Iamp;B Minister Arun Jaitley and is in tune with the Prime Minister8217;s recent announcements of having men and women of stature and credibility as Governors and as nominated members of Rajya Sabha. 8220;My view is that the whole set-up, from the Prasar Bharati Board downwards has to be professionalised, though I have no powers to appoint members of the Board,8221; Jaitley told The Indian Express soon after the committee was appointed.

The members of the Prasar Bharati Board are appointed by a three-member team comprising the Vice President, Chairman of the Press Council of India and T V R Shenoy. Karnik iswell-versed with the broadcasting medium; Sen, who was with Hindustan Lever, took the Lever name to the country8217;s villages, and Murthy is an information technology guru. The committee will go into various aspects of Prasar Bharati8217;s functioning like its marketing and management systems, the upgradation of technology and quality of programmes. With Doordarshan8217;s revenue coming down from 48 to 28 per cent of the market share over the last three years, and stiff competition from private channels, Jaitley had turned his attention to the task of revamping DD after taking over.

Doordarshan has a viewership much larger than any of the private channels today, and this was also the case during the recent elections. But its revenue was one-third that of other channels. Though DD has five national channels and 15 regional ones, it has no marketing set-up worth its name. Its one studio in Hyderabad has the same number of people, 450, that are employed by NDTV. Though it had 20,000 employees, it was not using thein-house talent the way it could.

The Government also retired two members of the Prasar Bharati Board today under the P B Act. Jaitley defended the retirement of Romila Thapar and Rajendra Yadav. As two members have to be retired every two years, the question was how to do it. One suggestion was to draw lots. Jaitley said, 8220;To draw lots in matters of governance is a best case of non-application of mind.8221; Instead, he chose the criteria of retaining those closest to the Prasar Bharati, like George Verghese, who had authored the idea, and will have a full six-year term; Abid Hussain, who has an administrative background, and U R Rao, a space scientist, both will be there for another two years. Jaitley has been credited with the view that people with strong ideological leanings should not find a place on the Board. For it triggers off a counter demand by those with opposing views also to be on it.