This is the third part in a series of articles on PTV. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
In my previous two articles on PTV (Part 1 and Part 2), I raised the matter of appointments based on political affiliation and cronyism. Some fact finding reveals that the inductions of Assistant Producers in Group 4 (equivalent to BPS-16), and Producers in Group 5 (equivalent to BPS-17), were carried out only twice in the past four decades through following a proper procedure, in 1985 and 2010. The procedure involves a written exam and a robust interview of the candidates. The exam results of 1993 batch are still pending.
The government of Benazir Bhutto had imposed a ban on government jobs in 1988. Consequently, only a few appointments were made in PTV during that period. However, in the same year, through a single order, all Assistant Producers were given a one step promotion to Producers. This created a crisis in PTV – there was no one available to assist in productions. The newly promoted Producers refused to assist their Senior Producers, because now they stood on equal footings with them.
This crisis led to a new invention – the position of a resource person was created. Producers were sanctioned to include a fee for a resource person in the program budget, and hire a person of their choice to assist them. But it didn’t stop there. It opened up avenues for random employments. All other departments found a way of hiring persons of their choice – for example, the transport department could hire extra drivers in the capacity of resource persons.
This created a mass of employees in every department of PTV. However, the Personnel Department – as the HR department is called in PTV – kept this a secret from these contractual employees, whether they were hired against a post or against the program budget (PB). Starting from the early 1990s, some of these resource persons had remained with PTV for nearly ten to twenty years, when eventually all of them were inducted into PTV as regular employees. But this is how it looked from the bottom of the ladder. The stories of direct political appointments in higher positions such as Controller (Group 9/BPS-20) and Director (MP-I/Grade-21) are even more alarming. A director at PTV held three portfolios until recently being removed from his position owing to a scandal involving 8.5 million rupees.
This, and the myriad cases involving nepotism hires exemplify a lot of things about present day PTV. There is a long list of people who have been appointed to top management positions at PTV, in violation of established rules, job criteria and standards of decency. The memories of a former Chairman PTV, who allegedly purchased drugs from the PTV pocket, are still fresh in our minds. Any investigative journalist can approach the PTV Personnel department and ask them to provide the credentials of all the appointees in Group-9 and above in the past 5 decades – or PTV, as a public limited company, should make their doings transparent themselves. These records will be quite revealing.
As I draw close to the end of this story of woe and misery, I am compelled to narrate an incident that shows how brutally this national institution has been devoured by its own people. It was around 2005, when a private drama producer wanted to sell a drama series for 26,000 rupees per episode. When he failed everywhere else, a bigwig of PTV of that time, made PTV purchase that serial for 180,000 rupees per episode. This was a well-known scandal of that time, which an old buddy from PTV reminded me of a few days ago.
I have avoided mentioning names from these stories. That is because we cannot correct the past, but we can fix the future. The country’s political leadership needs to think this matter through. In an age of supposedly fifth-generation warfare, our most important institution, our most important weapon so to speak, is thus blunted. From all that we know, it is imperative that a fair and open enquiry should be conducted into the matters of PTV.
Only then we can probably hope see a better future of this national institution.
This is the third part in a series of articles on PTV. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
In my previous two articles on PTV (Part 1 and Part 2), I raised the matter of appointments based on political affiliation and cronyism. Some fact finding reveals that the inductions of Assistant Producers in Group 4 (equivalent to BPS-16), and Producers in Group 5 (equivalent to BPS-17), were carried out only twice in the past four decades through following a proper procedure, in 1985 and 2010. The procedure involves a written exam and a robust interview of the candidates. The exam results of 1993 batch are still pending.
The government of Benazir Bhutto had imposed a ban on government jobs in 1988. Consequently, only a few appointments were made in PTV during that period. However, in the same year, through a single order, all Assistant Producers were given a one step promotion to Producers. This created a crisis in PTV – there was no one available to assist in productions. The newly promoted Producers refused to assist their Senior Producers, because now they stood on equal footings with them.
This crisis led to a new invention – the position of a resource person was created. Producers were sanctioned to include a fee for a resource person in the program budget, and hire a person of their choice to assist them. But it didn’t stop there. It opened up avenues for random employments. All other departments found a way of hiring persons of their choice – for example, the transport department could hire extra drivers in the capacity of resource persons.
It was around 2005, when a private drama producer wanted to sell a drama series for 26,000 rupees per episode. When he failed everywhere else, a bigwig of PTV of that time, made PTV purchase that serial for 180,000 rupees per episode.
This created a mass of employees in every department of PTV. However, the Personnel Department – as the HR department is called in PTV – kept this a secret from these contractual employees, whether they were hired against a post or against the program budget (PB). Starting from the early 1990s, some of these resource persons had remained with PTV for nearly ten to twenty years, when eventually all of them were inducted into PTV as regular employees. But this is how it looked from the bottom of the ladder. The stories of direct political appointments in higher positions such as Controller (Group 9/BPS-20) and Director (MP-I/Grade-21) are even more alarming. A director at PTV held three portfolios until recently being removed from his position owing to a scandal involving 8.5 million rupees.
In an age of supposedly fifth-generation warfare, our most important institution, our most important weapon so to speak, is blunted.
This, and the myriad cases involving nepotism hires exemplify a lot of things about present day PTV. There is a long list of people who have been appointed to top management positions at PTV, in violation of established rules, job criteria and standards of decency. The memories of a former Chairman PTV, who allegedly purchased drugs from the PTV pocket, are still fresh in our minds. Any investigative journalist can approach the PTV Personnel department and ask them to provide the credentials of all the appointees in Group-9 and above in the past 5 decades – or PTV, as a public limited company, should make their doings transparent themselves. These records will be quite revealing.
As I draw close to the end of this story of woe and misery, I am compelled to narrate an incident that shows how brutally this national institution has been devoured by its own people. It was around 2005, when a private drama producer wanted to sell a drama series for 26,000 rupees per episode. When he failed everywhere else, a bigwig of PTV of that time, made PTV purchase that serial for 180,000 rupees per episode. This was a well-known scandal of that time, which an old buddy from PTV reminded me of a few days ago.
I have avoided mentioning names from these stories. That is because we cannot correct the past, but we can fix the future. The country’s political leadership needs to think this matter through. In an age of supposedly fifth-generation warfare, our most important institution, our most important weapon so to speak, is thus blunted. From all that we know, it is imperative that a fair and open enquiry should be conducted into the matters of PTV.
Only then we can probably hope see a better future of this national institution.
This is the third part in a series of articles on PTV. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.