All India Radio, Doordarshan sees dip in its workforce

The workforce in state broadcasters All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan (DD) has further depleted by 3,186 between 2022-23 and now with vacancies rising to 64.58 per cent, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has informed a Parliamentary panel.

The combined sanctioned strength of AIR and DD is 45,791 while there are only 16,219 people in the rolls at present leaving a vacancy of 29,572, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information and Technology quoted the Ministry as saying.

In 2022-23, the panel headed by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said, there were 19,405 people working in AIR and DD against a sanctioned strength of 45,791, leaving a vacancy of 26,386.

“Detailing about the problems of recruitment in Prasar Bharati, the Ministry explained that officials are regularly retiring on superannuation and since there is no fresh recruitment taking place, the young talent are in short,” the committee said.

If one takes AIR alone, the number of those employed decreased from 12,613 to 10,265 against a sanctioned strength of 26,129, leaving a vacancy of 15,864 at present.

DD has 5,954 workers in the payroll at present as against 7,242 in 2022-23. While the sanctioned strength is 19,662, according to the report on Demands for Grants of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the vacancies have risen to 13,708 at present.

Prasar Bharati CEO Gaurav Dwivedi told the panel that the issue of staff shortage is a long-standing issue. When Prasar Bharati was formed in 1997, he said, two-third of around 46,000 posts were full but as the number of vacancies increased as people retired.

A manpower audit was held in 2020 but no further action could be taken as Covid-19 pandemic struck the country, he said, adding last year, a mechanism to prepare a roadmap for manpower management was taken up and a new policy is being crafted.

The Ministry told the panel that there is shortage of staff in programme, engineering and administrative cadres in the DD. Pending cases resulted in not filling posts through promotions, it said adding direct recruitment has also stopped due to UPSC and SSC dissociating from the recruitment process as Prasar Bharati is an autonomous body.

“…there is an overall shortage of manpower in Prasar Bharati and that is being managed by re-deploying available manpower and hiring persons on assignment basis for assisting in production and day-to-day work of the Doordarshan Kendras,” it said.

The AIR, the report said, is “facing acute shortage” of staff in all its cadres and wings and an attempt is being made to overcome it to some extent by engaging officials on a short-term contract basis. Deccanherald