While packing up in Srinagar, Masoodi takes media for a ride

Mandi House makes clear it is transfer, not promotion as DDG (Programme)

Early Times Report

SRINAGAR, May 31: Dramatis personae of Doordarshan’s story of fraud have in the past succeeded in getting classical novels translated from Hindi to Kashmiri from poor freelance translators and stolen for themselves the prestigious Sahitya Academy awards. This is, however, first time in the 40-year-long history of the national broadcaster in Jammu & Kashmir that an official, supposed to honour Shiva’s Third Eye, has cheated hundreds of mediapersons in making them believe that he had been “elevated to the post of Deputy Director General” and posted at the DD headquarters for a larger responsibility. Mandi House officials, however, made it unambiguously clear to Early Times today that Director of DDK Srinagar, Dr Rafeeq Masoodi, had been simply transferred from Srinagar and posted on the same rank at the DD headquarters. They made it clear that there were only five DDGs (Programme) and two incharge DDGs (Programme) and Dr Masoodi was nowhere even in the pipleline of promotions in the next two years.

Immediately after the transfer order of 35 officials reached Srinagar on Monday, Dr Masoodi sent a news story in self-promotion to entire list of mediapersons by email from his official ID ‘ddksrinagar@gmail.com’ last evening. It was headlined as “Dir DDK Srinagar Dr Rafeeq Masoodi promoted as DDG programs”. It’s body text read as under:

“Srinagar, May 30: Senior Director Doordarshan and Station Director DDK Srinagar Dr Rafeeq Masoodi has been elevated to the post of Deputy Director General (DDG) Programs. According to an official order vide no. 2011/S-III dated 27-05-2011 issued by Director General Doordarshan following rationalization of designations based on the pay scales of officers of Prasar Bharati working in different units in DG: AIR, DG: Doordarshan and other offices Dr Rafeeq Masoodi has been promoted to the post of DDG programs after a decision was taken by the Prasar Bharati Board members.

Hailing his appointment as DDG programs various broadcasting associations, press fraternity, members of civil society, intellectuals, literary personalities, academicians, theatre and cultural groups, artists, singers,  judicial luminaries and other association of private producers have congratulated Dr Masoodi over his new assignment”.

Masood’s promotional story appeared, almost verbatim, in most of the state’s newspapers including one of the country’s largest circulated national dailies. However, when Early Times contacted top officials at Mandi House and Prasar Bharti Broadcasting Corporation of India, they invariably made it clear that it was “simply a transfer and no elevation or promotion”.

Top officials, who insisted that they were not authorized to speak publicly, said that incharge Director General of Doordarshan, L D Mandloi, had got the orders issued through Deputy Director Administration, Sunita Bharal, after consultations with Prasar Bharti, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Central Vigilance Commission, besides DD’s own Vigilance department. They revealed that Masoodi’s name was included in an already prepared list of 34 officials after CBI recommended “Regular Departmental Action” (RDA) against the official facing serious charges of corruption and misuse of official position in case FIR No: 02/A/2009/CBI/Sgr and case FIR No: 04/2010/CBI/Sgr.

“There have been no promotions in the last many months and none are immediately in the pipeline. Rafeeq Masoodi is continuing as a Director (Programme) in Pay Band-4 Rs 37400-Rs 67000 with Grade Pay of Rs 8700. He has no chance of promotion to the next rank in the next two years”, said an officer. According to him, Director (Programme) carries the Grade Pay of Rs 8700 while as Deputy Director General (Programme) gets Grade Pay of Rs 10,000.

The officer posted at Mandi House elaborated that even after Masoodi’s joining at DD headquarters, total number of DDGs (Programme) remained static at five. He identified them as Ashok Jailkhani, LD Mandloi (currently incharge DG), R Venkateswarlu, Fayyaz Sheharyar and Usha Bhasin. Jailkhani and Sheharyar, husbands of two sisters, are from Kashmir. He said that in addition to five DDGs (Programmes), two officers, namely Ms Neelima Harjal and Deepa Chandra, were functioning as ‘incharge DDGs (Programme). “News of Dr Masoodi’s elevation to the next higher rank of DDG (Programme) is completely baseless”, he added.

Another highly placed officer at PBBCI headquarters said that Dr Masoodi had perhaps misinterpreted recent rationalization of designations in DD and All India Radio and tried to project it as his “promotion”. He said that vide Order No: A-10/S4/2002-PPC Dated 24-05-2011, Corporation had issued a fresh nomenclature and designated all Directors (Programme)/ Station Directors of Grade Pay 8700 as DDG (Programme) without any promotion or elevation while as all DDGs (Programme) carrying Pay Grade of Rs 10,000 had been similarly designated as Additional Director General (Programme) without any promotion.

He said that it would take some time to fully implement the new order of change of designations and Directorate General of Doordarshan had, in fact, issued the transfer order of 35 DD officers, including Masoodi, with only the old designations. He too asserted that none of the officers in DD or AIR, touched in the transfer order dated 27-05-2011, had been promoted to higher rank.

END