Laapata - creativity from DD

The lighter the organization, more easy is it for the company to be steered to new horizons and explore new pastures; it keeps the costs low and betters margins.  

Well, this is something which our Government organizations will never learn. Agreed that they are the biggest employers and provide income to some many households but this is coming at the cost of the very viability and sustainability of the organization. Air India is what comes to mind immediately and ideally, Doordarshan (DD) should be the next one but then we hardly ever watch this channel, so how will there be any recall, right?

Doordarshan had the first mover advantage but it allowed the private sector to steal its thunder and it is now grappling for survival. One of the main reasons, apart from the bureaucratic style of functioning is the huge employee burden.  According to a 2014 report by Sam Pitroda committee on Prasar Bharati, the broadcaster reportedly had 33,800 employees and a sanctioned strength of 48,022—the highest in the world for a public broadcaster. Compare this to BBC, which employes 16,858 while public broadcasters in China and Japan each employ 10,000.

The worst part of this bulky employee strength – to run a media company, you need fresh thinking and fresh recruits but in DD, last recruitment programme was 20 years ago in 1996. That’s not all. In the past 30 years, no Prasar Bharati employee has undergone any training programme. The last training was in UK, USA and Canada some 30 years ago. In these 30 years, no programmer has attended even three-six months of training.

Its easy to see why DD flounders….