The Bill for amending the Prasar
Bharati Act 1990 to treating all government officers and employees recruited by
All India Radio or Doordarshan as on 5 October 2007 to be on 'deemed
deputation' with effect from April 2000 till the time of their retirement
received Parliamentary approval with the Lok Sabha passing it.
The Bill, which has already been
cleared by the Rajya Sabha, will now go to the President for her assent and
will then be notified as an Act.
The Bill for amending Section 11 and
some other provisions of the Act was moved by Minister of State for Information
and Broadcasting CM Jatua was passed unanimously, though members were agitated
over the slow progress in filling vacant posts and the failure to recognise
unions and associations of employees.
The Bill will affect a majority of
the 38,000 employees in Prasar Bharati by assuring them of their pension and
other benefits. Until 2000, the employees had been deemed as full government
employees and their status was changed to 'deemed employees' from 1 April 2000.
Earlier this month, the Rajya Sabha
had also passed three official amendments in the Bill following acceptance of
the action taken on the recommendations made in the Eighteenth Report on
"Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Amendment Bill,
2010" of the Standing Committee on Information Technology.
(Subsequently, Rule 37A of the CCS
Pension Rules will also be amended through gazette notification.)
Intervening in the discussion,
I&B Minister Ambika Soni assured the House that a comprehensive bill to
cure all that was wrong with Prasar Bharati would be brought shortly.
She said any association of employees desirous
of recognition had to fulfill the criteria laid by the Department of Personnel
and Training in its rules of 1993. She said there were over 21 associations for
the approximately 122 categories of employees but none had applied under the
1993 Rules for recognition. At the same time, she gave to the house a note
listing the number of times she had met the employees to hear their grievances
despite their not being recognised.