By IANS
New Delhi : The long wait of All India Radio and Doordarshan staff to get the status of government employees appears to be over with a Group of Ministers (GoM) Friday backing the proposal.
The GoM headed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil unanimously favoured the long-standing demand of nearly 38,000 employees of the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati that they should be given the same rights as other government servants, official sources told IANS.
The GoM has, however, yet to decide how Prasar Bharati workers, who are under an autonomous corporation, will get government staff status and facilities. This may well raise questions about Prasar Bharati’s autonomy.
The modalities of giving them the status of government employees will be decided at the GoM’s next meeting towards the end of the month.
Employees on deputation with Prasar Bharati may be given an option for joining the corporation permanently or going back to their parent cadre.
The GoM was acting on a Supreme Court directive on deciding the status of Prasar Bharati employees and submit a reply on this issue before Aug 2.
The issue of financial restructuring or autonomous structure of the public broadcaster did not figure prominently in the discussions.
The meeting, which lasted for over two hours, was attended by Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Sports and Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, Culture Minister Ambika Soni, Minister of State for Personnel Suresh Panchauri, Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta, and Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy, apart from Patil.
Secretary in Information and Broadcasting ministry Asha Swarup and secretary, personnel, Satyananda Mishra and Prasar Bharati chief executive officer B.S. Lalli were also present at the meeting.
It was not clear whether any proposal to impose any licence fee or cess either on radio or TV sets was discussed.
Faced with growing public criticism ever since a section of the media reported about a proposal for a licence fee, Dasmunsi Thursday vehemently denied that there was any such move to bail out cash-strapped public broadcaster.