A minister fights back

EVERY time there is a news event such as the Kandahar hijacking or the Agra Summit, the wisdom afterwards tends to be that we have too much media chasing too little news. Indeed the private sector is burgeoning. Delhi alone has more than 13 newspapers, some of which are struggling to survive, and there are literally dozens of TV channels, including three or four in each of the major regional languages. So when the Geetakrishnan Committee on Expenditure Reforms ventured to suggest that you did not need a cash-strapped Government to be supporting a veritable media empire of its own, it did not seem like an illogical recommendation.

Today, the Central Government runs organisations to publish books, make films and TV programmes, to run film festivals, to train film makers and journalists, to make children's films, to take photographs to distribute to newspapers, to perform skits in rural areas on health and rural development, to prepare handouts for the newspapers, to create advertisements and publicity campaigns and to show movies to the rural masses. All this in a country with one of the world's largest privately owned media industries. Together its less than memorable performance costs the Central exchequer around

Rs. 2,300 crores a year.

The crux of the committee's recommendation was that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting could easily reduce its staff strength from 7,779 posts to 2,176 posts. (Prasar Bharati (PB) of course accounts for another 44,500 employees, but being technically autonomous it is no longer considered part of the Ministry.) Around 70 per cent of these posts, it pointed out helpfully, were clerical in nature and suggested that perhaps officers in the Government media should learn to work differently and not rely quite so much on underlings sustained by the taxpayer. Staff salaries of the Ministry and PB together account for Rs. 725 crores a year.

It also observed pithily that "Government controlled media as such does not also carry credibility amongst the people the world over who believe in the freedom of the Media. In this background, it is only appropriate that the Government Information and Broadcasting system is reviewed with a view to making it credible, modernising it and rendering delivery of mass communication services more cost effective".

When this committee undertook its labours on the I and B ministry, it had been assured by the then minister of Information and Broadcasting, Arun Jaitley, that its recommendations would be accepted. But when the date for implementing the recommendations came, the person in the hot seat was Sushma Swaraj. The lady looked at the ERC's report and saw that if it is implemented she would not be left with much of a ministry to head. So her ministry's 250-page reply to a

60-page report is a fight for survival. And obviously aiding her in the fight are the heads of the units that the committee has found redundant. They have been assiduously making out a case for why they should be retained in full strength, so that they can continue to keep India's millions entertained and informed.

The recommendations that have irked Ms. Swaraj and her underlings say in effect that in a country with a huge film industry you do not need a Directorate of Film Festivals to conduct film festivals, or a Film and Television Institute run by the Government to train film makers and film technicians, (Rs. 11 crores a year to train 153 students) or a Government sustained Children's Film Society to make films for children. Or a National Film Development Corporation to finance films. Surely the film industry and the growing television industry could do all of this?

Likewise, you do not need a Photo Division to take photographs for newspapers to use and then despatch them to the State headquarters which then sustain a machinery to despatch them to the districts. Or a Publications Division to publish books. You could also argue that the Government does not need to get into the business of training journalists at Rs. 8 crores a year, but the committee has decided to leave the Indian Institute of Mass Communications alone while suggesting its four branches be wound up. (Incidentally, this must be one of the few educational institutions in the country to have a flunky attached to each teacher.)

Nor do you need a Films Division (FD) to make documentaries and take prints of them in various languages and despatch them to all cinema halls in the country to be shown before commercial movies as the Government currently requires. When the Supreme Court looked at this issue some time back it found that the recoveries by the FD in the form of rentals recovered from cinema halls was only Rs. 7 to 8 crores whereas the expenditure incurred by the Division for taking prints alone was of the order of Rs. 12 crore, not counting the cost of distributing them. And are the multiplexes mushrooming in the metropolises showing FD documentaries? I suspect they are not. Meanwhile the division has 1,100 plus employees.

The FD is also supposed to make films for ministries but many of them prefer to get these made themselves, because then it gives them largesse to distribute. And the uncharitable say it takes the FD a year to make a documentary. Doordarshan is finally supposed to show these films but has declined to do so in the past. So now the Rural Development Ministry, for instance, has signed a memorandum of understanding with DD to hand over its annual Rs. 10 crore budget so that the national broadcaster can get films made and put them on air. And a third invaluable duty that the FD performs is to accompany the Prime Minister and President on every trip abroad to record these events for posterity on 16-mm film.

The Geetakrishnan Committee has also come down heavily on units that Ms. Swaraj would indignantly argue are catering to India's rural masses. It does not think you need the Directorate of Field Publicity (DFP) with 1,900 employees to be showing films in the rural areas to spread the message of health and rural development, when DD and AIR should be doing just that. Particularly since these broadcasters cost the exchequer Rs. 2,000 crores a year, going by the 2001-2002 budget.

What is more, DFP acquires films such as "Border" to show, to gather a crowd, which will then be lectured to about iodisation of salt, and immunisation and such like by a field publicity officer who is a master of all subjects. The ERC also does not see the need for the Song and Drama division to be touring the country performing skits for the rural folks to watch. Folk theatre groups across the country would probably be able to do this more effectively. India is undoubtedly still poor and backward, and still in need of public service media messages, but given DD's public service record who is to say that the Government is the best agency to do this? Is it not better to give Government grants to sustain those who can do it better?

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry which is resisting the cuts is infuriated because the Committee making the recommendations went by available information and did not record the evidence of those who run these divisions. But if you consult employees on whether they should be made redundant, what answer are you likely to get? The sharper question to ask is, if you were to shut down the Government's media empire barring radio and TV, how many people in this country would miss it?

Comment from a reader on "Khul Ja Sim Sim": If Star Plus wants to distribute money why does it not open a flood relief cell?

SEVANTI NINAN

E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com

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