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DD revives the system of commissioning programmes

Commissioned programmes of Doordarshan, which have been one of the biggest attractions for small time producers, are being revived very soon. This was revealed by Prasad Bharati.CEO R.R. Shah during an interview with Screen in Delhi. He informed that Central Commissioning Unit (CCO), which was disbanded months ago would be revived, but not in its original form. The Central Commisioning Unit will have a new look and role to play.

It may be mentioned here that former CEO of Prasar Bharati, S.S. Gill, had taken the first step to stop the corrupt and illegal practices of Commissioning Unit in distribution of programmes and serials to private producers. He took charge of the entire department, shifted some junior level corrupt officials and banned the empanelled producers Association. But after Gill quit, the old system was back with the same officials and a few favoured producers ended up making lakhs of rupees.

When the present CEO took over, Screen had done a major story on the issue and Shah took immediate action. He seized all the powers of T.R. Malakar, DDG and in charge of Central Commissioning Unit of DD, and stopped the system of commissioning programmes on DD1 and DD2.

Now Shah has plans to restart the practice of commissioning programmes. "We are setting up a board for commissioning of programmes to producers. The board will comprise eminent film makers, actors, poets, writers and people from all walks of life. The basic purpose is to have quality programme and at the same time bring in transparency,” says RR Shah.

This panel will include officials of Doordarshan and All India Radio but the final decision will be taken by the majority. Shah also informed Screen that commissioning of programmes will be done not only on the main channel but on all the new regional channels.

Doordarshan has massive plans for regional channels. Bangla, Gujarati and South Indian channels are gradually becoming 24 hour channels. Doordarshan’s Punjabi channel is starting from July 1 this year. Both Oriya and North Eastern Channel (a composite north eastern channel for all north east states) are coming up at the end of this year.

There will be commissioned programmes on all these new channels. As Shah says "We have plans to commission serials based on old classics of Indian literature. After all, the new generation has every right to know what the great author Kalidas has written. The serials based on literature will have two versions. One in regional language for regional channel, another one in Hindi for national channel." Doordarshan has also plans to dub some good prime time Hindi programmes in reg-ional languages for new regional channels.

Recently, there was a controversy on the source of programming on ‘Kasheer Channel’, a channel started in and for Kashmir recently. Kashmiri producers demand that all the programmes on the channel be made by producers based in Kashmir and not by outsiders. The channel is funded by Ministry of Home and sourced partly by big production houses and channels like UTV, Zee, Star Plus and mostly by independent producers who are commissioned by Doordarshan.

The lobby of Kashmiri producers want a Kashmiri official in the place of Anurag Mishra, the present controller of programmers in charge of Kasheer Channel.

When asked about the controversy, Shah said "The person whom they (Kashmiri producers) want here as controller of programmes does not have a very clean image. But as far as programming of the channel is concerned, I believe that all the programmes of the channel must be made in Kashmir, so that local people, technicians, cameraman, artistes get employment but, if a subject is very good even if the producer is an outsider, it should get a clearance."

Shah had an ambitions plan to make a serial on Vikram Seth’s ‘Suitable Boy’ to be directed by Gulzar. What happened to that idea?
"Their proposal is still with us. But some of their (Vikram Seth’s) conditions are not acceptable to us. Talks are on let’s see what happens!"

Talking about the issue of corruption in DD he said that many corrupt officials and staff of DD have been suspended in the last few months. Recently three senior officials of Jaipur Doordarshan Kendra have been suspended. On the issue of continuation of some senior officials with dubious background in DD, he said "if we get an evidence against them, I would certainly take action but they can’t be punished only because there are some complaints against them".

Doordarshan is seeking strong alliance partners in the area of Digital and Terrestrial Broadcasting, DTH, Newsroom automation and High definition TV, Internet among other things. When asked about his recent foreign visit, he said "I can’t tell you the details of the talk but we have been talking to NHK (Japan’s Public Broadcasters), CNN, BBC, Sony and PanAmSat."

Amitabh Parashar