NEW DELHI: Concerned of the huge gap between revenue and expenditure, a parliamentary committee has refused to accept the excuse that Prasar Bharati being a public service broadcaster is not principally guided by commercial consideration.

In its report on the budget of the information and broadcasting ministry for 2013-14, the parliamentary standing committee for information technology has expressed regret that ?nothing concrete? has been done despite the ministry itself expressing the apprehension that ?if this trend continues it would result into wiping out the entire available reserve of Prasar Bharati and the organisation may find itself in immense financial distress.?

The committee noted that the gap between the revenue projected and the revenue earned by Prasar Bharati has been increasing year after year. It expressed concern over ?the increasing disparity between the revenue earned and expenditure year after year.?

During the year 2011-12 and 2012-13, the revenue projection was Rs 1650 crore and Rs 1815 crore respectively and the revenue receipts for the years were Rs 1409.54 and Rs 1263.56 crore (up to February 2013). This meant a gap of Rs 240.46 crore in 2011-12, and Rs 551.44 crore in 2012-13 up to February this year.

The committee finds that during the year 2010-11, the gap between revenue earned and expenditure was Rs 1633.73 crore which increased to Rs 1931.03 crore in the year 2011-12 and further swelled to Rs 1376.32 crore in 2012-13.

The committee was also ?dismayed? to note that during the year 2012-13, the revenue generated by All India Radio and Doordarshan was Rs 1263.56 crore and expenditure incurred from Internal and Extra-Budgetary Resources (up to February 2013) was Rs 1583.43 crore leading to a gap of Rs 319.87 crore between the revenue earned and expenditure met out of IEBR.

For the Twelfth Plan, the proposed IEBR was Rs 5000 crore while the approved IEBR was Rs 1000 crore. For the year 2012-13, Rs 400 crore had been earmarked under IEBR component but was reduced to Rs 200 crore at Revised Estimate Stage.

The committee said: ?It is astonishing to note that despite widening gap between revenue receipt and expenditure, the target for IEBR during Twelfth Plan have been reduced to mere Rs 1000 crore.?

The committee therefore wanted to know the rationale behind the steep reduction in IEBR target and how it is proposed to meet the burgeoning expenditure without generating IEBR. It wants the Ministry to re-visit this vital aspect. The Committee would await necessary details in this regard.

The committee appreciated the aggressive marketing strategies being adopted by Prasar Bharati, and noted that Prasar Bharati is also exploring the feasibility of revenue generation by utilizing the extra space commercially by installation of ATM machines, installation of electronic displays for advertisements of private parties, launching of IVR/SMS based services to provide news headlines and letting of FM transmitters to private parties.

While these were good initiatives, the committee said it was ?not satisfied with the pace of progress as so far only one office of Prasar Bharati has been identified for installation of ATM and the Ministry/Prasar Bharati are yet to make a survey of their total land and buildings to assess spare infrastructure.

The committee wants Prasar Bharati to make ?more rigorous efforts in the asset management area and try to generate more revenues by adopting aggressive marketing strategy and better professional handling of the marketing division which in turn will make it financially more viable and secured?.

NEW DELHI: Taking umbrage at the fact that utilisation of budgetary allocation has not been good, a Parliamentary Committee has said the Information and Broadcasting Ministry failed to take effective steps for approval of the schemes at the beginning of the financial year 2012-13 which led to surrender of funds due to restrictions imposed by the midway, that is, in October 2012 to the Finance Ministry.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology said against the proposed sum of Rs 32.8 billion, the Ministry was allocated an amount of Rs 9.05 billion during the year 2012-13. This sum was further reduced to Rs 6.76 billion at the stage of revised estimates (RE), out of which the actual expenditure was to the tune of Rs 6.11 billion, that is 90.4 per cent of the RE allocation.

The Committee noted that for 2013-14, the I and B Ministry has been allocated a total amount of Rs 30.36 billion which includes Rs 9.05 billion as Plan outlay and Rs 21.31 billion as non-plan outlay.

The Committee was unhappy that even after overall reduction in allocation of funds in 2012-13, the same were not utilised fully. The Committee said it was not satisfied with the reasons advanced by the Ministry for under-utilisation of funds during 2012-13. These reasons are delay in approval of the schemes resulting in surrender of funds, and the guidelines issued by the Finance Ministry restricting expenditure to 33 per cent of the Budgetary Estimate in the last quarter and not more than 15 per cent of the BE in the last month, scheme wise, subject to RE ceiling.

The Committee noted, however, that the Ministry has initiated some steps to effectively utilise the funds during the year 2013-14 which include streamlining of the process of appraisal/approval of the schemes and obtain the clearances according to the revised/projected deadline during the year 2013-14 itself so that the targets set under various schemes are not shifted/deferred further.

The Committee also urged the Ministry to vigorously pursue the matter with the Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry to obtain clearances for 26 schemes initiated during the year 2013-14.
It said its concerns in this regard should also be communicated to both the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission and Committee be apprised of the action taken in the matter.

It noted that the position of utilisation of funds during 2011-12 was better as out of Rs 7.87 billion allocated at RE stage, the actual expenditure was Rs 7.63 billion.

The Committee noted that for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17), the Ministry had proposed a total plan outlay of Rs 217.31 billion (including Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources - IEBR - of Rs 50 billion from Prasar Bharati) against which the approved outlay is Rs 85.83 billion (including IEBR of Rs 10 billion from Prasar Bharati).

NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati continues to be in a financial precarious position as its operating expenses far outstrip revenue in the fiscal ended 31 March 2012.

The pubcaster?s revenue stands at Rs 11.83 billion for the first 10 months of the fiscal, according to data provided by Information and Broadcasting Ministry sources.

After meeting the operating expenditure of Rs 28.51 billion, its deficit stares large at Rs 16.68 billion for the fiscal till January-end (subject to reconciliation of accounts). Prasar Bharati is yet to make its results public.

Out of the total deficit, Rs 13.89 billion has been met from Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR), I&B sources say.

In comparison, the deficit in 2010-11 had been Rs 12.37 billion, of which Rs 11.35 billion had been met through IEBR. The pubcaster had earned revenue to the tune of Rs 13.10 billion in the fiscal.

Meanwhile, the outlay in the Annual Plan (2012-13) for Prasar Bharati has been fixed at Rs 5.85 billion. The Government will provide total financial support in the form of Grant-in-aid and loan.

There will be a new scheme - Content Development and Dissemination - which is to be fully funded by IEBR of Prasar Bharati towards Revenue Plan component, Ministry sources add.

The approved budget for Prasar Bharati under Revenue Non-Plan for the financial year 2012-13 is Rs 14.62 billion. The Government has trifurcated the Revenue Non-Plan support to Prasar Bharati in the form of Grants-in-aid (Salary), Grant for creation of Capital Assets, and Grants-in-aid (General).

All India Radio gets Rs 7.60 billion while Doordarshan gets Rs 7.02 billion of this non-plan allocation, a source reveals.ke.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Information Technology has noted that the Commercial revenue earned by Doordarshan is lesser than the projections made during each year of the Eleventh Plan. It states that the growth of the revenue earned by Doordarshan has been ?very slow? during these years, noting that IEBR of Rs 50 billion at the rate of Rs 10 billion for each of the annual plans has been assumed for the Twelfth Plan.

In this direction, Rs 4 billion out of IEBR has been earmarked during the year 2012-13 for planned projects of Prasar Bharati. The share of Doordarshan in this regard is Rs 2.5 billion.

The Committee is ?surprised to find that on the one hand, specific provision has been made and exclusive outlay out of IEBR has been earmarked for planned schemes. On the other hand, the Ministry has submitted in the written replies that Prasar Bharati may not be in a position to afford the expenditure for planned schemes for IEBR.?

The Committee was also informed that according to the recommendations of the Group of Ministers on Prasar Bharati, the Government will meet expenditure for four categories: Salary & Salary related establishment expenses, expenses on Augmentation & Replacement of Capital Assets and the expenditure on the remaining items, Other Administrative Expenses, and Software & Programme related expenses.

In addition, Prasar Bharati has to supplement IEBR in all these four categories and remain in focus for budget crisis and paucity of funds.

Pending a decision of the Government on the recommendations of GoM, a specific projection out of IEBR for planned schemes has been met for the first time.

The Committee concludes that Prasar Bharati has great challenges in the coming years in regard to generating resources for the activities. The Committee ?strongly? recommends that DD should explore all the possibilities of revenue generation so as to meet the targets of projections made for planned schemes out of IEBR.

The Committee also notes that Doordarshan has to prepare for meeting the devised parameters of sharing the expenditure according to the formula suggested by GoM.