NEW DELHI: Concerned of the huge gap between revenue and expenditure, a parliamentary committee has refused to accept the excuse that Prasar Bharati being a public service broadcaster is not principally guided by commercial consideration.

In its report on the budget of the information and broadcasting ministry for 2013-14, the parliamentary standing committee for information technology has expressed regret that ?nothing concrete? has been done despite the ministry itself expressing the apprehension that ?if this trend continues it would result into wiping out the entire available reserve of Prasar Bharati and the organisation may find itself in immense financial distress.?

The committee noted that the gap between the revenue projected and the revenue earned by Prasar Bharati has been increasing year after year. It expressed concern over ?the increasing disparity between the revenue earned and expenditure year after year.?

During the year 2011-12 and 2012-13, the revenue projection was Rs 1650 crore and Rs 1815 crore respectively and the revenue receipts for the years were Rs 1409.54 and Rs 1263.56 crore (up to February 2013). This meant a gap of Rs 240.46 crore in 2011-12, and Rs 551.44 crore in 2012-13 up to February this year.

The committee finds that during the year 2010-11, the gap between revenue earned and expenditure was Rs 1633.73 crore which increased to Rs 1931.03 crore in the year 2011-12 and further swelled to Rs 1376.32 crore in 2012-13.

The committee was also ?dismayed? to note that during the year 2012-13, the revenue generated by All India Radio and Doordarshan was Rs 1263.56 crore and expenditure incurred from Internal and Extra-Budgetary Resources (up to February 2013) was Rs 1583.43 crore leading to a gap of Rs 319.87 crore between the revenue earned and expenditure met out of IEBR.

For the Twelfth Plan, the proposed IEBR was Rs 5000 crore while the approved IEBR was Rs 1000 crore. For the year 2012-13, Rs 400 crore had been earmarked under IEBR component but was reduced to Rs 200 crore at Revised Estimate Stage.

The committee said: ?It is astonishing to note that despite widening gap between revenue receipt and expenditure, the target for IEBR during Twelfth Plan have been reduced to mere Rs 1000 crore.?

The committee therefore wanted to know the rationale behind the steep reduction in IEBR target and how it is proposed to meet the burgeoning expenditure without generating IEBR. It wants the Ministry to re-visit this vital aspect. The Committee would await necessary details in this regard.

The committee appreciated the aggressive marketing strategies being adopted by Prasar Bharati, and noted that Prasar Bharati is also exploring the feasibility of revenue generation by utilizing the extra space commercially by installation of ATM machines, installation of electronic displays for advertisements of private parties, launching of IVR/SMS based services to provide news headlines and letting of FM transmitters to private parties.

While these were good initiatives, the committee said it was ?not satisfied with the pace of progress as so far only one office of Prasar Bharati has been identified for installation of ATM and the Ministry/Prasar Bharati are yet to make a survey of their total land and buildings to assess spare infrastructure.

The committee wants Prasar Bharati to make ?more rigorous efforts in the asset management area and try to generate more revenues by adopting aggressive marketing strategy and better professional handling of the marketing division which in turn will make it financially more viable and secured?.

NEW DELHI: Taking umbrage at the fact that utilisation of budgetary allocation has not been good, a Parliamentary Committee has said the Information and Broadcasting Ministry failed to take effective steps for approval of the schemes at the beginning of the financial year 2012-13 which led to surrender of funds due to restrictions imposed by the midway, that is, in October 2012 to the Finance Ministry.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology said against the proposed sum of Rs 32.8 billion, the Ministry was allocated an amount of Rs 9.05 billion during the year 2012-13. This sum was further reduced to Rs 6.76 billion at the stage of revised estimates (RE), out of which the actual expenditure was to the tune of Rs 6.11 billion, that is 90.4 per cent of the RE allocation.

The Committee noted that for 2013-14, the I and B Ministry has been allocated a total amount of Rs 30.36 billion which includes Rs 9.05 billion as Plan outlay and Rs 21.31 billion as non-plan outlay.

The Committee was unhappy that even after overall reduction in allocation of funds in 2012-13, the same were not utilised fully. The Committee said it was not satisfied with the reasons advanced by the Ministry for under-utilisation of funds during 2012-13. These reasons are delay in approval of the schemes resulting in surrender of funds, and the guidelines issued by the Finance Ministry restricting expenditure to 33 per cent of the Budgetary Estimate in the last quarter and not more than 15 per cent of the BE in the last month, scheme wise, subject to RE ceiling.

The Committee noted, however, that the Ministry has initiated some steps to effectively utilise the funds during the year 2013-14 which include streamlining of the process of appraisal/approval of the schemes and obtain the clearances according to the revised/projected deadline during the year 2013-14 itself so that the targets set under various schemes are not shifted/deferred further.

The Committee also urged the Ministry to vigorously pursue the matter with the Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry to obtain clearances for 26 schemes initiated during the year 2013-14.
It said its concerns in this regard should also be communicated to both the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission and Committee be apprised of the action taken in the matter.

It noted that the position of utilisation of funds during 2011-12 was better as out of Rs 7.87 billion allocated at RE stage, the actual expenditure was Rs 7.63 billion.

The Committee noted that for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17), the Ministry had proposed a total plan outlay of Rs 217.31 billion (including Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources - IEBR - of Rs 50 billion from Prasar Bharati) against which the approved outlay is Rs 85.83 billion (including IEBR of Rs 10 billion from Prasar Bharati).

NEW DELHI: DD Urdu spent Rs 208 million of the Rs 210 million allocated to it in 2012-13 by the Prasar Bharati compared to just Rs 100 million spent by the channel out of the Rs 74 million allocated in 2008-09.

Similarly, DD Kashir spent Rs 116.5 million out of the Rs 116.7 million allocated to it in 2012-13 as compared to Rs 56.9 million spent out of the 87.4 million given to it in 2008-09.

Prasar Bharati has also informed that separate allocation of funds continues to be made to Doordarshan from the revenue plan under the scheme software acquisition/production of Doordarshan.

There is no plan to discontinue this practice, Prasar Bharati sources said.

 
The amounts allocated in previous years with the amount spent, as far as DD Urdu is concerned, were

The amounts allocated to DD Kashir and the expenditure was

NEW DELHI: Even as Prasar Bharati is claimed to be an autonomous body, Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari today made it clear that the government cannot be expected to maintain "an arm?s length" when it foots the bills for the pubcaster.

The minister was responding to criticism by Prasar Bharati Board chairperson Mrinal Pande who spoke of ?intricate circles of bureaucratic power? surrounding the institution.

Both were speaking at the inaugural session of a meeting of a recently-constituted Expert Committee to review PB?s functioning headed by the Prime Minister?s advisor on Public Information Infrastructure Sam Pitroda.

Tewari said the key issue was whether India needed a public broadcaster, and its relationship with the government.

"Two-thirds of the I and B ministry?s budget ? Rs 18.85 billion out of Rs 28 billion ? goes to Prasar Bharati. I am the recruiting authority, the disciplinary authority, the sanctioning authority. Yet, I am supposed to have arm?s length. I am not God," he It needs to be noted here that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had in December stated that the government should further strengthen the arm?s length relationship between the public broadcaster Prasar Bharti and the central government.

While submitting its recommendations on "Issues related to entry of government or government entities into the business of broadcasting and/or distribution of TV channels" Trai had said that measures should ensure functional independence and autonomy of Prasar Bharti.

The option was to follow the ?Comptroller and Auditor General-Finance Ministry? model if the vote was in favour of having a public service broadcaster, the minister said. "If you want to take it out of the government?s ambit, PB can be directly accountable to Parliament. This will then allow me to have another full spectrum communication agency which puts the government?s viewpoint in the public space. Communication is a part of the development remit."

Tewari emphasised that for any change to be ?sustainable?, reforms had to be ?incremental and gradual? so that it could deal with the resistance within the system. But Mr Pitroda said he believed in ?disruptive approach and generational change?. "If it is not disruptive, it is not worth doing."

Earlier, Pande had rejected the proposition of remaking AIR and DD as government departments as ?rubbish?.

She asked the Expert Committee to focus on programming issues, where the problem was a ?dual control system?, with the government retaining ?final regulatory powers? on a range of issues. "Committed professionals and innovative artistes are replaced by grim men and women behind desks who tell us not how change can happen, but why it must not."

She also highlighted the ?systemic mis-alignments? in the ?hastily crafted? PB Act 2000, where the government picks the top three members of the PB executive, even though the Board is supposed to be supervising and managing the corporation?s affairs. Much to its ?embarrassment?, the Board learnt of certain PB-related issues from the next day?s newspapers, she added. She spoke of met hardware needs that were not being met.