Prasar bharati Bill gets Parliament nod

NEW DELHI: The Bill for amending the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 to treating all government officers and employees recruited by All India Radio or Doordarshan as on 5 October 2007 to be on ?deemed deputation? with effect from April 2000 till the time of their retirement received Parliamentary approval with the Lok Sabha passing it.

The Bill, which has already been cleared by the Rajya Sabha, will now go to the President for her assent and will then be notified as an Act.

The Bill for amending Section 11 and some other provisions of the Act was moved by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting CM Jatua was passed unanimously, though members were agitated over the slow progress in filling vacant posts and the failure to recognise unions and associations of employees.

The Bill will affect a majority of the 38,000 employees in Prasar Bharati by assuring them of their pension and other benefits. Until 2000, the employees had been deemed as full government employees and their status was changed to ?deemed employees? from 1 April 2000.

Earlier this month, the Rajya Sabha had also passed three official amendments in the Bill following acceptance of the action taken on the recommendations made in the Eighteenth Report on "Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Amendment Bill, 2010" of the Standing Committee on Information Technology.

(Subsequently, Rule 37A of the CCS Pension Rules will also be amended through gazette notification.)
The Bill had been introduced in September, 20 months after the Group of Ministers on Prasar Bharati had decided in January last year, ending an uncertainty that had prevailed for a decade.

Intervening in the discussion, I&B Minister Ambika Soni assured the House that a comprehensive bill to cure all that was wrong with Prasar Bharati would be brought shortly.

She said any association of employees desirous of recognition had to fulfill the criteria laid by the Department of Personnel and Training in its rules of 1993. She said there were over 21 associations for the approximately 122 categories of employees but none had applied under the 1993 Rules for recognition. At the same time, she gave to the house a note listing the number of times she had met the employees to hear their grievances despite their not being recognised.

Referring to criticism of why the employees were being treated as on ?deemed? deputation, she said this was something the employees had themselves wanted. In fact, certain Rules drawn in 2002 but had been kept in abeyance because of differences amongst employees.

Referring to complaints about the content or quality of programming, she said that all Kendras had been asked to set up advisory committees of eminent citizens.

She said while the Group of Ministers on Prasar Bharati had suggested that the wage bill should be split equally with the government, it was the Ministry which had suggested that the entire wage bill would be borne by the Government for the employees working as on 5 October 2007.

In his reply, Jatua said the delay in the Bill was because drawing up regulations for the various categories of employees took a long time but the Ministry had processed these expeditiously and they were now with the Department of Personnel and Training which is also examining the case of casual employees.

Agreeing with members that work had suffered because of shortage of staff, he said that the GoM had now recommended filling up of 3,452 posts immediately and this had been referred to the Department of Expenditure.

The Bill was also aimed at giving more supervisory and regulatory authority to Prasar Bharati because of greater functional autonomy, he said.

Answering members, he said the selection of the Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati was done by a three member committee comprising the vice-president, the chairman of the Press Council of India, and a nominee of the President. It was thus not the prerogative of the Ministry.
The employees working under deputation will get all facilities at par with Central government employees.

The amendment had become necessary "since the recommendations of the GoM will settle all long standing issues regarding status of employees working in Prasar Bharati and empower the public broadcaster with all disciplinary and supervisory powers, including the power to transfer."

The official amendment relating to the deemed status means amendment to section 11(2) of the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Amendment Bill 2010 by the addition of the words "and until their retirement" at the end of the section. This will make the status of the employees recruited between 23 November 1997 and 5 October 2007, making their deemed deputation to Prasar Bharati till their retirement absolutely clear and unambiguous.

A provision has also been made to maintain the status quo in respect of employees belonging to Indian Information service and Central Secretariat service and other cadres borne outside that of All India Radio and Doordarshan. It says that the Ministry and Prasar Bharati may jointly work out the number of deputation posts to be manned by officers of the Indian Information Service cadre.

The GoM had said that employees recruited from 6 October 2007 will be deemed to be employees of the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) and subject to rules drawn up by the Board of the public broadcaster.

Though the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act was passed in June 1990, it was notified as a statutory corporation only from November 1997. Section 11 of the Act had given employees the option to decide whether they wanted to join the Corporation or go back to the government, but no action was taken as the rules for various categories of employees have not been drawn up in the past twelve years.