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Thursday, February 6, 2014

Prasar Bharati: The costly white elephant

Source: Livemint.com | By Sevanti Ninan
FIRST PUBLISHED: THU, FEB 06 2014

Doordarshan has 33,800 employees, the highest in the world, while BBC has 16,858; in 2011-12 Prasar Bharati had accumulated losses of Rs.13,556 cr

Prasar Bharati: The costly white elephant
A public broadcaster is supposed to be viable, not profitable. It is not supposed to worry about TRPs. Photo: Indranil Bhoumik/Mint

The Sam Pitroda committee report on Prasar Bharati, which came out last fortnight, is unequivocal on one point. If you continue with business as usual at India’s public service broadcaster, it will only hurtle further down the path to expensive irrelevance. When a new government comes in this summer, it will have to sooner or later decide how much good money it wants to continue wasting on this behemoth.

Here’s why. We are told that it is no secret that Prasar Bharati isn’t even faintly autonomous. The law that governs it needs to be overhauled. Change the law, take it out from under the government and put it under a parliamentary committee if it is worth continuing with this public service broadcaster. Make funding flow to it directly from Parliament.

Although far fewer people are watching it than ever before, it costs a bomb to maintain. “Doordarshan and AIR (All India Radio) have not been...............

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