NEW DELHI: Even as Information and Broadcasting Minister (I&B) Prakash Javadekar has given his clearance ‘in principle’ to setting up recruitment boards for Prasar Bharati, it is learnt that a total of 1154 technical posts have been cleared by the relevant selection committees.
These include programme executives, transmission executives, technicians, engineering assistants and duty officers, sources in Prasar Bharati told indiantelevision.com.
These sources said that Javadekar had already held some meetings with senior officials of the pubcaster including CEO Jawhar Sircar and work was on to ensure a smoother relationship between the autonomous public service broadcaster and the government.
Prasar Bharati had received clearance early last year for immediately filling up 1150 posts out of the 3452 posts which had been identified as critical and approved by Group of Ministers in June 2009.
The pubcaster has not had any senior-level recruitment since it came into being in September 1997, and the sources said that those posts which could not be filled out of these were held up because there is no Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board.
The source said steps are being taken to set up the Board at the earliest so that the pubcaster does not face such difficulties in future.
Earlier in March last year, the pubcaster had in a notice in Employment News notified Combined Recruitment for the Post of Programme Executive and Transmission Executive Examination for 1166 posts to be filled after interviews by the Staff Selection Committee.
As of early 2013, there were 1362 vacancies in Group A, 1,584 in Group B, 4863 in Group C and 2272 in group D in All India Radio. In Doordarshan, 724 posts are vacant in Group A, 1140 in Group B, 2871 in Group C, and 1451 in Group D.
All India Radio and Doordarshan had total staff strength of 33,800 against a total sanctioned strength of 48,022, leaving a gap of 14222 posts.
The most critically affected areas were the Programme Wing and the News Services Division (AIR)/DD News.
The Committee for Information Technology in 2012 regretted that Prasar Bharati had failed to live up to the assurance given by then Prasar Bharati chief executive officer that the recruitment boards for Prasar Bharati would be set up by 31 March 2011.
It is understood that the Union Public Service Commission and SSC had both refused to select for a non-Governmental organisation, thus creating a new problem for the Ministry/Prasar Bharati.
The proposal for setting up a Prasar Bharati recruitment board was approved by Prasar Bharati Board on 21 July 2010 and discussed in the Ministry and a final proposal was referred to the Department of Personnel and Training on 15 February 2011. DOP&T concurred with the proposal in June 2011 and the comments of the Department of Expenditure (DOE) were also received on 28 September 2011.
The DoE had requested that a separate proposal be formulated for creation of posts for the secretariat of Prasar Bharati recruitment board and also requested for drafting of agreement containing terms and conditions of the members of the board. This had been done and the proposal sent to DoE in February 2012 and then to Law Ministry.
