Public Broadcaster Prasar Bharati is facing shortage of manpower in various departments including its Programme Wing and the News Services Division, Lok Sabha was informed today.
Information and Broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha that the vacancies had arisen due to retirement, resignation and death of employees.
"The promotion quota vacancies could not be filled up as Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meetings could not be held consistently after constitution of Prasar Bharati as an autonomous Corporation in the year 1997 and due to litigations. Also very few direct recruitments have taken place since 1997," Javadekar further said in the written reply.
Listing the corrective steps taken up to fill vacant posts he said that the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Prasar Bharati has recommended for filling up 3542 essential category of posts in consultation with the Department of Expenditure.
"The Department of Expenditure has approved filling up of 1150 posts in the first phase," he said.
Since the setting up of Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board is still pending, he said, the government has approved recruitment for Group B and C posts through the Staff Selection Commission(SSC), as a onetime special dispensation.
He also said that Prasar Bharati has informed that they have given regular, ad-hoc and in-situ promotions to various categories of employees to mitigate stagnation in promotions.
