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Public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati’s debt—Rs.12,071.33 crore—was written off by the government recently. Jawhar Sircar, who’s spent eight months as CEO of Prasar Bharati, comprising Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR), that was set up as an autonomous body in 1997, said in an interview that this would help the organization turn itself around. Edited excerpts:
What does the debt write-off mean for Prasar Bharati?
As long as you have debt on your head on which interest is ticking—it does not matter whether you are able to pay it or not—it remains a burden. At any point of time if anybody wants to scuttle something, they can say ‘you have unpaid debts of so many thousand crore’. You can’t really come out and win public confidence when you have a lot of debt piling.
How do you plan to meet your operational expenses? (Expenditure on salaries will be borne by the government)
Once you declared Prasar Bharati to be a separate organization (with 341 kendras—67 television and the rest radio stations), or when you are setting up transmitters and satellites and have people employed for public service broadcasting, then someone has to pay for it. What we are following is a mixed model. People outside think that we are completely subsidized by the government, therefore we are not cost-conscious. That is not true. For instance, in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-12), we earned Rs.6,000 crore in a difficult time (at the time top Prasar Bharti executives were facing allegations of financial malpractices; CEO B.S. Lalli had to be removed). The government gave us another Rs.6,000 crore during this period. So the ratio was 1:1 during the 11th Plan ending March 2012.
We got additional Rs.1,600 crore from the government for changing transmitters that were 40 years old, cameras which did not move and lights that had got lost. If we had tried really hard, this Rs.1,600 crore could have been split 50:50 too. We could have generated Rs.800 crore.
Now our earnings will go into operational expenses such as spectrum and other charges, local taxes, vehicles, content and advertisement. Our own publicity budget has disappeared.
Read Complete Interview on Livemint
What does the debt write-off mean for Prasar Bharati?
As long as you have debt on your head on which interest is ticking—it does not matter whether you are able to pay it or not—it remains a burden. At any point of time if anybody wants to scuttle something, they can say ‘you have unpaid debts of so many thousand crore’. You can’t really come out and win public confidence when you have a lot of debt piling.
How do you plan to meet your operational expenses? (Expenditure on salaries will be borne by the government)
Once you declared Prasar Bharati to be a separate organization (with 341 kendras—67 television and the rest radio stations), or when you are setting up transmitters and satellites and have people employed for public service broadcasting, then someone has to pay for it. What we are following is a mixed model. People outside think that we are completely subsidized by the government, therefore we are not cost-conscious. That is not true. For instance, in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-12), we earned Rs.6,000 crore in a difficult time (at the time top Prasar Bharti executives were facing allegations of financial malpractices; CEO B.S. Lalli had to be removed). The government gave us another Rs.6,000 crore during this period. So the ratio was 1:1 during the 11th Plan ending March 2012.
We got additional Rs.1,600 crore from the government for changing transmitters that were 40 years old, cameras which did not move and lights that had got lost. If we had tried really hard, this Rs.1,600 crore could have been split 50:50 too. We could have generated Rs.800 crore.
Now our earnings will go into operational expenses such as spectrum and other charges, local taxes, vehicles, content and advertisement. Our own publicity budget has disappeared.
Read Complete Interview on Livemint