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| Private producers denied payment following backtrack by executive producers of DDK Srinagar | | Rs 35 crores liabilities reduced to Rs 10 crores within days | | Jehangir Rashid
SRINAGAR, Sept 29: Despite paying handsome commission to executive producers, hundreds of private producers who produced scores of programmes for Kashir channel of Doordarshan Kendra Srinagar have been left high and dry since their payments have been stopped allegedly on the diktats of executive producers.
Sources told Early Times that payments of crores of rupees have been withheld following the denial from the executive producers that the programmes were produced under their supervision. The denial from executive producers has landed the private producers in trouble as they sold their valuable assets to produce programmes and now are being denied payment for no fault of theirs.
"When Rafiq Masoodi was Director DDK, Srinagar private producers were allowed to produce in-house programmes but with a rider that these programmes would be monitored and supervised by the executive producers. The private producers worked under the guidance and expertise of executive producers and all the norms were adhered to by the private producers at the different levels of production," said the sources.
Sources said tapes were submitted by the private producers and they were expecting the payment to be made soon. However, it came as a shock to them when the executive producers denied the supervision and monitoring of the programmes produced by them. The denial came after the queries raised by Mandi House about the programmes since the liabilities amounted to Rs. 35 crores.
"Despite taking hefty sum as commission from private producers the executive producers cheated the former. They told the Mandi House authorities that there is no need to pay private producers since the programmes have been produced by them without any formal approval. This has led to a situation where payment of around 350 private producers has been withheld over the past two years," said the sources.
The sources said a team of Prasar Bharti Broadcasting Corporation of India (PBBCI) that is on a visit in connection with the audit at DDK Srinagar pulled up the Kendra authorities for creating liabilities of Rs. 35 crores. The PBBCI team called up the executive producers and it was during these meetings the executive producers played a spoilsport with the payments due to private producers.
"Executive producers like Zeeshan Fazil, Qayoom Wadera, Haleema Parveen, Javed Bukhari, Mufti Riyaz, Nasir Mansoor, Rashid Javed and Rajeeev Sadhu eat into the payments of private producers by telling the PBBCI team that they were not involved anywhere in the production of programmes by private producers. It was only after these interactions that the liabilities were reduced from Rs. 35 crores to Rs. 10 crores," said sources.
Sharing details with Early Times, Station Director DDK Srinagar, Gulab-ud-din Tahir said the issue pertains to officers who have already demitted their office with the local Kendra having no role in the whole issue. Tahir said that since probe has already been ordered in the matter the picture would become crystal clear in the near future.
"A team of PBBCI is already in town to carry out probe and it would not be prudent for me to comment on this matter since this has happened some years back. Things would become clear soon and hopefully the record would be set straight," said Station Director, DDK Srinagar. |
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