NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday commenced hearing of a petition challenging the decision of Prasar Bharati de-recognizing all associations of employees, rejecting a plea by counsel for the pubcaster seeking dismissal of the plea.

The hearing will continue on 26 September when counsel for the associations as well as those of Prasar Bharati will present their arguments.

Until now, nine associations of employees were formally recognised by the management and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry which has been talking to their representatives on various issues.

However, an order issued on 8 September said no association of employees of the pubcaster is recognised and, therefore, no employee can be given preferential treatment.

It further said all employees are to be treated in a fair and transparent manner and nullified an earlier order issued by Director General of All India Radio on 18 December 2008.

The staff of All India Radio and Doordarshan protested against this move and observed a day-long dharna from 10 am to 5 pm without disrupting work on 21 September.

NEW DELHI: All areas uncovered by terrestrial transmitters in border areas along with the rest of the country have been provided with multichannel television coverage through Doordarshan?s free-to-air direct-to-home platform DD Direct Plus which can be received anywhere in the country with small sized dish receiver units.

However, All India Radio and DD terrestrial coverage in the border areas in Jammu and Kashmir is being strengthened with an outlay of Rs 1 billion in the 11th Plan.

The scheme includes projects of establishment of five high power transmitters in J&K: two at Rajouri and one each in the Kashmir, Jammu, and Ladakh regions.

A total of 273 TV transmitters of varying power are presently functioning in the border areas all over the country.

NEW DELHI: The Group of Ministers on Prasar Bharati has recommended that the dues from the pubcaster amounting to over Rs 13 billion on account of space segment and spectrum charges as on 31 March 2011 be waived.

Even as it has commenced arbitration proceedings to recover dues from production houses or advertising agencies, Prasar Bharati itself owed a total amount of Rs 13.05 billion as on 31 March to various Ministries and Departments, Prasar Bharati sources told indiantelevision.com.

While All India Radio owed Rs 2.11 billion, Doordarshan owed Rs 10.94 billion on account of space segment and spectrum charges.

DD and AIR have to pay Rs 6.47 billion and Rs 1.77 billion as space segment charges respectively.

On the spectrum front, DD and AIR owe Rs 4.47 billion and Rs 324 million.

NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati has posted a 19.14 per cent jump in revenue to Rs 13.88 billion for the financial year ended March 2011, according to the pubcaster?s sources.

The accounts have not been finally audited for the fiscal in view of various factors including the Commonwealth Games broadcast rights issue.

"The figures reported by the Directorates of All India Radio and Doordarshan add up to a revenue of Rs 13.88 for the fiscal ended March 2011. The final audit has not been done due to various factors including the CWG broadcast rights issue," the sources add.

In FY?10, Prasar Bharati had reported revenue of Rs 11.65 billion.

The operational cost of Doordarshan, however, has climbed to Rs 14.69 billion in 2010-11, compared with Rs 14.21 billion in the year-ago period.

The operational cost includes non-plan expenditure, revenue expenditure, and capital plan expenditure. The rise has been mainly due to increase in salary, dearness allowance and grant of benefit of Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme to the employees.

Earlier this year, the Group of Ministers recommended that the Government should meet 100 per cent of the expenses on salaries and allowances of the employees and augmentation/replacement of capital assets.

The remaining items of operating expenditure are to be borne by Prasar Bharati from its revenue earnings.

A total of 8018 personnel would be required for the operation and maintenance of newly sanctioned projects of All India Radio (2183) and Doordarshan (5835), according to sources. This is in addition to 3452 posts lying vacant and considered by Prasar Bharati as priority.

The Group of Ministers has approved a scheme worked out with the Finance Ministry for this purpose.

Earlier this year, the Prasar Bharati Board considered the long-pending Recruitment Rules for 196 cadres of employees in Prasar Bharati for forwarding to Government. Non-existence of these rules ever since Prasar Bharati came into being in 1997 was a major reason for the huge backlog in filling up the vacancies and making vital appointments, something which has come under heavy criticism in Parliamentary Committees.

NEW DELHI: All India Radio (AIR) has posted revenue of Rs 2.94 billion for the fiscal ended March 2011, up 18.35 per cent from Rs 2.49 billion in the year-ago period.

This includes the commercial revenue of the AIR AM/FM channels and also the revenues earned directly by Prasar Bharati towards publicity campaigns of different government departments and ministries.

AIR has earned revenue of Rs 364.47 million till May this financial year.

The Government earned revenue of approximately Rs 17.48 billion till 31 July 2011 from Phase I and Phase II of FM radio. Out of this, the Government earned around Rs 1.78 billion over the last three years from 2008-09 up to 31 July this year.

Apart from the revenues from the open auction procedure for Phase III of FM, the government is expected to also earn substantial income from beaming news of AIR on ‘as is where is‘ basis.

A total of 245 private FM and 252 AM/FM channels of AIR are operational in the country.

NEW DELHI: Cricketing fans who do not have access to television are sorely missing out on the ongoing India-England series as it is not being broadcast live on All India Radio.

Industry sources told Indiantelevision.com that although the Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act 2007 makes it mandatory for both Doordarshan and All India Radio to get signals of sporting events that are declared nationally important, the law is clear about only sharing live signals.

Channel 2, the exclusive rights holder of the radio commentary of the match, has refused to share signals with AIR since it claims that it is not broadcasting live signals, the sources said.

However, Prasar Bharati sources confirmed that Channel 2 had offered Rs 13 million to AIR on the condition that they would produce their own commentary and sell advertising rights. But AIR said after conducting an internal assessment that it could itself generate Rs 20 million in revenue from advertising.

Prasar Bharati CEO Rajiv Takru has said that the pubcaster will examine the situation to make sure that this kind of thing does not happen in future.

The tussle has deprived large parts of rural India without access to satellite TV - apart from those on the go in urban areas - from following the much-anticipated series.

However, former India captain Kapil Dev, who is now a director with Channel 2, is understood to have said that AIR‘s "allegations" were motivated and their attitude unprofessional. Dev added that since AIR had a virtual monopoly, Channel 2 could not sell the rights to anyone else. He also complained that AIR had not been able to take a decision despite being informed more than three months in advance.

A decision for the broadcasts may come in the event of intervention by Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, Prasar Bharati sources said.