| Minister, I&B top brass in Srinagar | | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Oct 4: Taking cognizance of malfunctioning and large scale corruption at Doordarshan Kendra Srinagar and DD's Kashir Channel, entire top brass of the union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Prasar Bharti Broadcasting Corporation of India, Doordarshan and All India Radio has arrived in Srinagar alongwith Parliament's Consultative Committee on I&B.
Even as Chief Executive Officer, Prasar Bharti, Mr Jawahar Sircar, will be reaching here on Friday, over a dozen Members of Parliament, who form Consultative Committee on I&B reached here for three-day visit today. During their stay in Srinagar, MPs and officials of I&B, PB, DD and AIR would review functioning of different stations of DD and AIR besides others departments of I&B in J&K.
Those who arrived in today included Minister for I&B, Mrs. Ambika Soni, Secretary I&B, Udhay Kumar Verma, two Joint Secretaries of I&B, DG Doordarshan Tripurari Sharan, DG AIR, LD Mandloi, ADG Engineering AIR, DK Khanna, and other officials. The group of MPS witnessed the proceedings in J&K Legislative Assembly for about one hour.
Later, Mrs Soni took a meeting with a delegation of over 50 private producers, script writers, singers, drama artists and other talents working with DDK Srinagar and DD Kashir. Secretary I&B, DGs of DD and AIR besides the members of Consultative Committee were present in the high level meeting at Hotel Taj By Vivanta.
Sources said that the delegation explained irregularities and corrupt practices of DDK Srinagar officials, demanded their transfer and legal action, including a credible CBI investigation, into their omissions and commissions in the last few years. They presented a set of newspaper reports to the Minister and implored her to clear the mess at DDK Srinagar. They also demanded release of their payments. They pointed out that the lately removed Director had drawn payment of her 32 programmes but those of scores of private producers had been piled up and subjected to investigations.
They demanded thorough investigations into productions on flagship programmes of Government of India and complained that almost all the payees of these programmes were relatives of a couple of DD officials.
Sources said that Mrs. Ambika Soni would hold a high level meeting with subordinate officers over the agenda of "paid news" and DAVP functioning tomorrow. She would review functioning of DD, AIR, PIB, Song and Drama Division and Field Publicity wing. She is scheduled to return to New Delhi early in the morning on Saturday.
Sources said that in her absence, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, would now inaugurate AIR's new 10 kw FM transmission and programme service at 1100 hours on Saturday. Rajya Sabha member and President of J&K Pradesh Congress Committee, Prof Saifuddin Soz, would also be present on the occasion. |
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