PRESS RELEASE

Nationwide protests by UPSC recruited Programme Officers of AIR and Doordarshan.

New Delhi: 2rd July

The Principal Bench of CAT New Delhi today expressed its unhappiness that the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Director General, All India Radio had not complied with its order calling for review DPC to the Indian Broadcasting Service of All India Radio and Doordarshan for more than five years. In their order today, the Tribunal stated that it was upset by the non-compliance and asked for an affidavit on action taken to be filed by tomorrow i.e. 3rd July 2009. The Hon’ble Bench also stated that they would be constrained to take coercive action if compliance was not done by the next date of hearing on Monday July 6th 2009.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Direct Recruit Programme officers of the two public service broadcasters, All India Radio and Doordarshan held a nationwide peaceful protest dharna including wearing black badges, organizing lunch hour gate meetings at major AIR and Doordarshan kendras today in order to express their anguish at the five year delay in implementing the court orders for review DPC.
A spokesperson of the Joint forum of the Association of the UPSC Recruited Programme Officers of AIR & Doordarshan (AUPO) and Programme Staff Welfare Association (PSWA) the two Associations spearheading the protest said that there is an unprecedented situation prevailing in the two organisations where hundreds of Programme Officers recruited by the Union Public Service Commission through national level selections are languishing for 20-28 years in their entry level posts without receiving a single promotion in their entire career.
The Associations pointed out that recent RTI documents show that the delay in implementing the review DPC is directly linked to the fact that a large number of ineligible persons have been inducted into the regular programme Cadre by violating to the statutory rules. These illegal appointees have been given further multiple promotions at the expense of the regularly recruited officers and are today occupying very senior positions in the organisations. The DPC is being delayed only to protect these illegal appointees.

The Association of UPSC Recruited Programme Officers of AIR and Doordarshan and the Programme Staff Welfare Association have demanded a fast track enquiry into the whole issue and withdrawal of all administrative powers from illegal officers as a minimum confidence building measure. The Associations have pointed out that in future the UPSC recruited Officers will not be taking instructions or orders from any illegally appointed person. If the grievances are not redressed in a time bound manner, the protests would be further intensified including stoppage of all production related activities.

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