NEW DELHI: Even as the government admits to shortage of staff in the public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati, there is a need to re-assess actual requirement of staff keeping in view changes in broadcast technologies.

Minister of state for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore told the Parliament that Prasar Bharati has been advised to carry out a Manpower Audit to identify posts actually needed to be filled up.

However, he said that limited recruitment has been undertaken as a special dispensation through Staff Selection Commission for critical Group ‘B’ and ‘C’ vacancies which were revived by the Government. In addition, special recruitment drive for filling up of backlog vacancies of Persons with Disabilities has also been carried out in Prasar Bharati.

No plans to regularise contractual workers

In reply to another question, the minister said there was no plan at present to regularise contractual workers in Prasar Bharati, Doordarshan, or All India Radio. He said Prasar Bharati has 38, Doordarshan has 749 and AIR has 196 contractual workers.

These contractual workersare engaged for various categories of work such as news dissemination, programme generation, legal assistance, marketing, computers/ IT consultancy etc, both for AIR and DD, according to requirement.

The number of casual announcers and casual comperes in various stations of All India Radio is 9722 and 4108, respectively. The casual announcers and comperes are engaged by the stations on assignment basis for a maximum of 6 bookings in a month up to a maximum of 72 days in a year, solely to meet the requirement of adding variety and interest to the programmes for which engagement on regular basis is not justified/ needed.