For daily EARLY TIMES (www.earlytimes.in) of November 1, 2009

Gross irregularities in commissioning of Kashir channel programmes

Farooq’s snub at Ambika’s SKICC function fails to chasten DD officials

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

SRINAGAR, Oct 31: Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy Dr Farooq Abdullah’s public reprimand at All India Editors Conference at SKICC here earlier this month has failed to bring about any accountability among Doordarshan authorities who seem to have crossed all limits of irregularities and unfair means in the current process of commissioning of programmes for DD Kashir. Even as DD has shamelessly closed the chapter of transparency and refused to post the list of the allotees and their credentials on its website, it has been discovered that most of the “hard and fast guidelines” have been brazenly violated and a large number of programmes have been secretly allotted to regular officials of Doordarshan Kendra Kendra (DDK) Srinagar through their relatives.


Slamming the DD officials for their loot and scoot of the programmes supposed to be allotted to eminent private producers, Farooq Abdullah had literally opened the eyes of the chief guest and Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Ambika Soni, by revealing at All India Editors Conference last fortnight that these regular government employees had always taken the lion’s share in all packages by getting the programmes clandestinely allotted to themselves and their kith and kin. According to him, almost every official at DD Kashir and DDK Srinagar was simultaneously operating as a private producer by putting his or her relatives in the front. “Even the eminent filmmakers like Subhash Ghai are now looking for other jobs as all Doordarshan officials have become private producers and directors”, Dr Abdullah had expressed, haplessly.

Making a mockery of the former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister’s embarrassing observations made in presence of the Minister incharge I&B, Ms Ambika Soni, DD officials holding top positions at ‘Mandi House’ have allotted a number of Kashir Channel programmes to officials of DDK Srinagar in the names of their relatives. Guidelines widely circulated and posted on DD website with the notification for this process in 2007 had unambiguously made it clear that none of the close relatives and family members of the DD officials would be entitled to allotment of a commissioned programme.

Cameraman Amin Mehtab, now retired, was a regular employee of DDK Srinagar from the day DD Kashir entertained and processed his proposal in 2008-09 and finally approved it last month. He is among over a hundred Srinagar-based “private producers” who have received the letters of approval, asking them to submit script of the full series within 15 days. Allotment of commissioned programmes to DDK Srinagar Programme Executive Ghulam Mohiuddin’s son, Deputy Director Syed Zeeshan Fazil’s brother Reyan Fazil, Producer Bashir Qadiri’s brother and a family member of DD’s Producer Abdul Rashid Bhat alias Rashid Javed are other glaring examples of brazen violation of DD’s own guidelines. And they are not the exceptions---discrediting entire process of the commissioning of programmes for DD Kashir that came after a long pause of nearly seven years.

Informed sources revealed to Early Times that a coterie of the DDK Srinagar officials had secretly maintained liaison with New Delhi-based head of DD Kashir, Ms Ananya Banerjee, through Kashmiri DD official Gulab-ud-din Tahir who has allegedly played key role in arranging letters of allotment for more than 30 relatives and friends of the officials of DDK Srinagar. Like in the past---perhaps more than that---there are serious allegations of money having changed the hands. Tahir is currently on leave but found every day present at DDK Srinagar on the “mission of collection” assigned to him at Mandi House.

Eminent private producers like Tariq Javed and G M Wani, who have given their sweat and blood to DD for the last 35 years, believe that money has played key role in allotment of programmes to little known applicants having no credentials in the field of electronic media. Both, Javed and Wani, are among those who have been unceremoniously dropped. “I was told by DG Doordarshan and Director DD Kashir that I stood disqualified for my wife happens to be an employee at DDK Srinagar. When I pointed out to them programmes allotted to the family members of other DDK officials, they had no answers. It’s my good luck that I sent my son to Law Department of Kashmir University for a PG course. Had he gone to Journalism and Mass Communications, he would have been suffering for the fault of his mother’s working with DD”, Javed said.

Others at DDK Srinagar insisted that some junior officials, including a particular women working on casual arrangement, had also visible hand in grabbing scores of commissioned programmes for regular DD officials and their favourites.

Violating their own guideline of allotting programmes to “not more than one member in a family”, DD authorities have also showered their blessings on retired DD official Bashir Budgami alongwith his son, Ansar Hussain, Shabir Hyder alongwith his son, Rafi Hyder, Farhat Gilani and two of his sons, including Riyaz Gilani, Bashir Marazi and his son Humayun Marazi, Irfan Marazi (Bashir Marazi’s brother), his sons Ashfaq Marazi, Tanvir Marazi and others in the family, Mushtaq Bala alongwith his son Haamid Bala, brother Sajjad Bala and two more family members as also to Kishen Langoo and one more from his family.

On the other hand, proposals of over a hundred of high profile private producers, including State Awardees of J&K Government, have been rejected by DD authorities without mentioning any reason thereto. Many of such proposals were reportedly on the themes of national integration and patriotism. This all, after they were subjected to shuttling between Srinagar/Jammu and New Delhi for making so-called presentations at ‘Mandi House’ which have not been finally assessed on their merits and demerits. One of the evaluation committee members, who had insisted on consideration of “only merit”, is understood to have been replaced in the thick of the process.

While telephone of Director, DDK Srinagar, Dr Rafeeq Masoodi, was “switched off” for the whole day, DD’s Director General, Ms Aruna Sharma, and Director incharge DD Kashmir, Ms Ananya Banerjee, did not respond to phone calls made for seeking their comments.

END