The Hindu Business Line : Revenue generation: CAG finds DD, AIR wanting

Notes of censure
Lack of timely action to cancel accreditation of agencies that had failed to make payments to Doordarshan resulted in accumulation of outstanding dues of Rs 513.38 crore till the end of March 2005.
AIR revised its rates in an ad hoc manner without any fixed periodicity and without keeping in view the rates charged by the private channels.

New Delhi , Aug.18

The performance audit of the `Systems of revenue generation by Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR)' by the Comptroller and Auditor General shows that the former was not able to exploit the tremendous growth in its network to increase its revenue.

"Doordarshan could earn only Rs 665.27 crore during 2004-05 as against the target of Rs 701.34 crore that it had set itself," the latest report of CAG tabled in Parliament on Friday states.

The report adds that the state-owned television broadcaster "displayed lack of commercial prudence" by allowing additional free commercial time (FCT) while revising its rate card in March 2003. "This resulted in DD earning only Rs 27.87 lakh through the increased rates while the sponsors benefited by Rs 6.55 crore," the report points out.

Similarly, while the lack of adequate monitoring of the use of FCT in the telecast of feature films led to a loss of Rs 19.08 crore during the period October 2000-June 2005, irregular grant of FCT resulted in a loss of Rs 8.88 crore in 100 cases.

The report adds that Doordarshan provided uplinking facilities to outside producers without entering into contracts that resulted in a non-realisation of Rs 3.03 crore till March 31, 2005. In addition, lack of timely action to cancel the accreditation of the agencies that had failed to make payments to Doordarshan resulted in accumulation of outstanding dues of Rs 513.38 crore till the end of March 2005.

On AIR

In the case of All India Radio, the report states that it could not utilise its resources effectively and its marketing efforts to sell available commercial time did not succeed. The report adds that this was reflected in the fact that the private channels with around only 9 per cent share of the total number of radio stations in the country managed to corner 49 per cent share of the total revenue.

"AIR has no rational policy for fixing its rates. It revised its rates in an ad hoc manner without any fixed periodicity and without keeping in view the rates charged by the private channels," the report says.

It adds that failure to take elementary action, such as entering into formal agreements before broadcasting a programme, resulted in a loss of Rs 5.19 crore during February 2004, while lack of adequate monitoring and follow-up action resulted in Rs 18.63 crore not being recovered from various agencies and advertisers till November 2005.

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