DD, AIR staff to work in PIB too

Redeployment in Ministries will cause conflict of interest, say officials.

February 23, 2018 09:18 pm | Updated 09:18 pm IST - New Delhi

In an unprecedented order on Thursday night, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting posted 15 officials from Doordarshan and 16 from All India Radio (AIR) as publicity officers for various government ministries.

The attempt, according to senior officials at the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, is to strengthen the government’s severely short-staffed publicity arm, the Press Information Bureau (PIB).

However, the latest reshuffle of the 31 Indian Information Service (IIS) officers from the state broadcasters is likely to lead to confusion and conflict of interest, sources said.

Autonomy issue

The officers’ primary charge will be to handle the publicity of the ministries. They will however, additionally continue their work at Doordarshan and AIR.

“An employee of the DD and AIR has to be [a] member of Prasar Bharati; how can they have dual loyalties? There is a clear conflict of interest of being part of an autonomous corporation as well as doing the government’s bidding. It is another example of contempt for Prasar Bharati Act by bureaucrats of I&B,” a senior official at Doordarshan said, requesting anonymity.

Sources said Director General Doordarshan Supriya Sahu, at a meeting on Friday, told the concerned officials that “some sort of system will be worked out”.

“We were told that a schedule would be prepared to work few hours in DD and remaining as publicity officials,” one of the officials at the meeting said.

Prasar Bharati officials meanwhile claim the issue has not yet been discussed. Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati did not respond to questions from The Hindu .

Multi-tasking

The IIS officials claim that more than a conflict of interest, the order is not workable. “The nature of jobs are very different. Both DD and AIR follow a 24-by-7 cycle and a publicity official’s job can be equally tricky — he has to be available at the beck and call of the Minister whenever required. How can the person be simultaneously available at two places?” a senior IIS official said.

Union Minister Smriti Irani took over the ministry of Information and Broadcasting in July last year. The genesis of the mass reshuffle of the IIS officials, according to few PIB officials, can be traced to events in October last year, when Doordarshan missed the story on the World Bank upgrading India’s position in the Ease of Doing Business rankings. Ms. Irani called for a meeting of all publicity officials and pulled them up for not alerting the public broadcaster. The publicity officials in turn told her of the severe manpower shortage in the PIB. To this Ms. Irani is said to have promised to strengthen the ranks of the PIB.

Recently, the association of IIS officers wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office, drawing attention to mass transfers, which they alleged have been carried out in contravention of the rules and established practices.

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