Prasar Bharati CEO dismisses reports on stand-off with I&B ministry
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Prasar Bharati CEO SS Vempati on Sunday dismissed media reports on the non-disbursal of salaries, clarifying that Rs 208 crore was released by the public broadcaster towards staff salaries on February 28, 2018 from its reserves.
Mr Vempati clarified on Twitter that reports in sections of the media about the non disbursal of salaries were attempts to "create panic malafide" and that the Information and Broadcasting had released funds contrary to what was being reported in the media.
Noticed reports in sections of media on non-disbursal of salaries to DD & AIR staff. Rs 208 cr towards salaries were released on the 28th Feb 2018. Attempts to create panic malafide. PB has so far received Rs 1989 crores from MIB as grants-in-aid for salaries during FY2017-18.
— Shashi Shekhar (@shashidigital) March 4, 2018
The tweet had not mentioned that the money towards salaries was released from the Prasar Bharati's reserves.
Hours later, the Prasar Bharti CEO wrote on Twitter that the Rs 208 crores that had been released by Prasar Bharti were from its reserves.
To be clear on @PTI_News misquoting my tweet - Rs 208 crores were released by @prasarbharati towards salaries for on 28th February 2018 from IEBR reserves. https://t.co/HPIXEspH3S
— Shashi Shekhar (@shashidigital) March 4, 2018
The clarifications come two days after a news website after quoted Prasar Bharati Chairman A Surya Prakash as saying that the public broadcaster had to pay staff salary for January and February out of its contingency funds
as the Information and Broadcasting had not released the funds.
The website had claimed that the delay in release of funds was due to alleged standoff between the Prasar Bharati and the I&B ministry.
Reacting to the news report, the I&B ministry had issued a statement saying that the Prasar Bharati had not signed an MoU with it as required by autonomous bodies getting grants-in-aid by the government.
The Prasar Bharati is an autonomous body that runs Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) and receives grant from the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry.
(With inputs from PTI)