CHENNAI: Don’t judge us only by our revenues but by the immense good we do, said a visibly irate Prasar Bharati Chairman, here on Wednesday. The statement made to
Express on the sidelines of an event in the city, was in response to a recent Ministry of Information and Broadcasting report that had called out the broadcaster for its consistent under performance in generating revenue.
“Do not always look at us from the revenue standpoint. The immense success of the Polio Mukt Bharat programme, the Jan Dhan Yojna programme are in no small part due to the constant hammering of the message that Prasar Bharati undertook. You are now free of polio. Is this not profitable?,”asked the chairman A Surya Prakash, adding that the broadcaster had also contributed to the large scale success of the Jan Dhan Yojna and the continuing Swachh Bharat campaign.
“In this world, you do not have any parallel to this. These things are possible in India only because a public service broadcaster like Doordarshan is there,” he said.
The report, recently made public, speaks of the large gap between revenue and expenditure that the body has been incurring while also noting that certain ministries, notably Health and Agriculture, have slashed or withdrawn funds earmarked for campaigns on Prasar Bharati. The broadcaster’s revenues dropped from Rs 1,137 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 993 crore in 2014-15, while expenditure had risen to Rs 1,850 crore in the previous fiscal from Rs 1,608 crore in 2012-13.
“For a private broadcaster, commerce is on his mind - all the time. Not so for us. We have our responsibilities cut out. Especially in a nation like India where 30-40 per cent are still below the poverty line and there is so much illiteracy,” he stated.
Prakash was also confident in the fact that the cases of Ministries withdrawing funds for campaigns on Prasar Bharati were not going to be a continuing phenomena. The Health Ministry had withdrawn Rs 100 crore and the Agriculture Ministry had slashed budgets from Rs 145 crore to Rs 70 crore.
“We had a few issues with the Agricultural Ministry in their Krishi Darshan. But I myself have met with them and I’m sure it will get sorted out. After all, when we consider the reach of AIR and DD, will every government ministry withdraw funds?,”he asked.
“This is temporary, I do not see this impacting in the long term,” he added