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| DD Kashir projects allotted to 30 J&K officials, including SSP | | Lion’s share goes to employees of Education, Health, Handicrafts and DD | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Nov 22: In brazen violation of the national broadcaster’s rules, policies and guidelines, besides service rules and regulations of the Government of Jammu & Kashmir, Doordarshan authorities at ‘Mandi House’ in New Delhi have allotted projects worth Lakhs of Rupees to more than 30 regular government employees in the front names of their wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and other family members. Even as most of these beneficiaries of the dubious process of commissioning in DD Kashir belong to the state’s Education and Health departments, at least one of them is holding the rank of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP).
With the DD continuously refusing to post the names and credentials of the allottee producers on its website, insiders have revealed to Early Times that the selection committee, functioning under the command of Controller of Programmes and Deputy Director General (DDG), Ananya Banerjee, has allotted a drama serial of 13 episodes to a Jammu-based SSP---all in the name and banner of his wife. According to these sources, Shukat Saleem Bukhari of SSB Films, who figures among the allottees, is still continuing as a regular employee in State Health Department.
Serials and other programmes have also been allotted to a Government Higher Secondary School Principal, Syed Yaqoob Dilkash (in the name and banner of his wife Qudsiya Dilkash), State Board of School Education employees, Aziz Hajini, Shaukat Usman and Altaf Hussain, in the name of their sons and brothers, University of Kashmir employee G M Wani in the name of his son, Forest Department employee Gul Javed in the name of his wife Mubeena, Power Development Department JE Shehzad Hussain in the name of his wife Rifat, Handicrafts Department employee Mohammad Shafi Mughal, Government Press employee Junaid Shah, Javed Geelani, Raja Majeed, Bashir Andrabi and over a dozen others in the names of their family members.
Almost all of these backdoor beneficiaries have been associated with Dooradrshan in different capacities but being regular government employees they are not eligible to function as private producers. Business activity of regular government employees is unlawful under Civil Service Rules and Regulations. Anybody found guilty is liable to punishment of fine and imprisonment of up to two years in addition to termination of his services.
As a modus operandi, all these backstage beneficiaries have launched fake banners in the names of their spouses, siblings, parents and other family members and managed to grab DD’s projects on front names. Most of them are additionally identifiable by the common factor of being the “directors” of the serials allotted to their front banners. It facilitates them to escort their front producers and participate in their presentations before DD’s selection committee at the Mandi House.
Even as state government’s Education and Health Departments have written letters, asking DD not to empanel their employees as producers and directors as also not to engage them in any other capacity with the television programmes without the written permission of their Heads of Departments, DD authorities have pushed everything under the carpet. “It has created a lot of indiscipline and absenteeism as these actors and writers never discharge their duties. Whenever we hold them accountable and freeze their salaries, they manage to get one or the other intervention from their contacts in the government”, lamented a senior official of Education Department.
Sources revealed that DD had not sought any permission of HoD or NOC of their administrative departments from the state government employees, unlawfully operating as “private producers”. There is a provision in the empanelment as well as in the contracts that the allotments would be cancelled if any information given by the producers was found to be incorrect or suppressed for any purpose. However, fact of the matter is that DD authorities have shut their eyes inspite of knowing well about the background of these impostors.
Some of the private producers, like Omar Imtiyaz, who has been empanelled as Producer for the first time, have been allotted the highest number of programmes i.e. 13 episodes and placed parallel to eminent producers like Farooq Masoodi and Zamir Ashai and far ahead of senior most producers and directors like Bashir Dada, Mudasar Nehvi and Pervez Masoodi, who have got just 6 to 8 episodes each. Until a couple of years, Imtiyaz was a regular employee with state Handicrafts Department. Nobody knows how he has managed to get experience certificate and profile of a private producer of more than five years in the job.
DDK Srinagar official, Gulab-ud-din Tahir, who has been handpicked by Ms Banerjee and is the one-odd official from Jammu & Kashmir associated with the DD Kashir commissioning, has reportedly issued fake telecast certificates in favour of over 50 of his favourites, including Imtiyaz, which has allegedly facilitated their empanelment through fraudulent means. A large number of eminent filmmakers and producers, who have stood by Doordarshan in the worst of its times in J&K, have been, in the process, either completely sidelined or accommodated just with peanuts of 2 to 6 episodes.
Yet again, nobody in the offices of DD’s Director General, Aruna Sharma, and DDG incharge DD Kashir, Ananya Banerjee, responded to phone calls when this newspaper attempted to get their clarification. Even after five weeks of issuing the approval letters, DD has not updated its website and its last posting on the domain are DD Kashir commissioning guidelines of 2007-08. |
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