Prior to his appointment as Chairman of Prasar Bharati in October, A Suryaprakash, an author and former journalist, was part of New Delhi-based think tank Vivekananda International Foundation. In an interview with BusinessLine , he outlines his roadmap for the country’s largest public broadcaster. Edited excerpts:

How do you plan to turn around Prasar Bharati’s fortunes?

My first priority is to fulfill the mandate of Parliament, which is that Prasar Bharati should be an autonomous corporation. Further, I would like to urge everyone within Prasar Bharati to work towards greater professionalism and with unity of purpose. An image makeover is the dire need of the hour.

Even though Prasar Bharati is an autonomous entity, it is not allowed to make decisions without the approval of the Information & Broadcasting Ministry…

When the PB Act came into being, one of the first things that had to be done was to establish the Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board, as envisaged in the Act.

Once this board is established, PB will acquire its own cadre, which will be attuned to the needs of one of the biggest media corporations in the world.

Right now, over 90 per cent of PB is staffed by Central government employees.

I would therefore press for early establishment of the recruitment board. Secondly, the Act envisages transfer of assets to PB. This too needs to be speeded up.

Do you believe that Prasar Bharati should be delinked administratively and financially from the government?

For four decades after Independence, All India Radio and Doordarshan were virtually departments of the Centre. Following the bitter experience during the infamous Emergency when these organisations became mere tools of government propaganda, several leading media personalities including BG Verghese took the initiative to draft a law that would bring AIR and DD under an autonomous corporation.

This idea finally fructified, albeit in a watered down form, in 1990 when the PB Act was passed by Parliament.

Prasar Bharati is running on deficit and has an accumulated loss of around ₹13,500 crore...

I am aware of the poor fiscal health of Prasar Bharti. However, there are two views regarding the extent of PB’s accumulated losses.

In the current fiscal, the Centre’s budgetary support to PB will be round ₹2,000 crore, which is around 50 per cent of the corporation’s annual budget. While I need to study this aspect, I feel PB can improve its finances if it can gain control of and monetise its assets. PB will also have to improve its revenues through better programming.

All India Radio as well as Doordarshan have a lot of part-time staff and to a considerable extent are overstaffed. Are there are any plans to right size?

I need to examine this issue before I can say anything on the matter. But I do know that a lot of programmes are on air because of media professionals hired on contracts or as casuals.

Do you see the Pitroda Committee recommendations being implemented during your tenure?

I have read the recommendations of the Pitroda Committee. I do think that several of the committee’s proposals are worthy of serious examination and implementation. All that I can say at this stage is that I will press for implementation of proposals that will improve the health of PB both in a fiscal and professional sense.

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