NEW DELHI: Information and broadcasting minister
Smriti Irani on Thursday told
Lok Sabha her ministry has released Rs 2.75 crore towards ‘grant-in-aid salaries’ to
Prasar Bharati from January this year.
She said the ministry had released Rs 1,989 crore towards ‘grant-in-aid salaries’ between April 2017 and December 2017, in writing to a question by TRS MP Suman Balka and
Congress MP Mullappally Ramachandran. The MPs had asked whether the I&B ministry has released funds meant for payment of salaries to PB employees and whether the public broadcaster had to pay salaries from its own contingency funds.
The minister also said that several reminders have been sent to Prasar Bharati since March 2017 to sign an MoU, required as per rules and the recommendations of the Expenditure Management Commission. However, now the ministry has received a revised MoU from Prasar Bharati that has been “considered in the ministry” and sent to them “with some modifications to take further steps” for signing the MoU, she said.
The ministry had issued a statement saying that Prasar Bharati had not signed an MoU with it getting grants-in-aid by the government. Prasar Bharati, the minister said, earns nearly Rs 1,400 crore per year which is their internal extra budgetary resource. The total financial requirement are met by combining their internal resource with grantin-aid from the Centre.
