The order of suspension have been condemned by the three organizations spearheading the agitation in a meeting here today. They have accused chief executive officer of Prasar Bharati of misusing the media for threatening the peaceful employees and giving false statement regarding their demands. They say that by his action he has subordinated the autonomous public broadcaster to the wishes of the ministry.

The striking employees of Prasar Bharati will march to Rastrapati Bhavan from Janatar Mantar on 12th April 1999 in pursuance of their demand for pay parity and rationalisation of pay scales. The feel that there is no one either in Prasar Bahrati Corporation or in the ministry of information and broadcasting to listen to their genuine grievances.

Meanwhile Association of Radio and TV Engineering Employees - ARTEE office bearers met chief executive officer Dr. Om Prakash Kejirwal and expressed their displeasure at the repressive measures being taken by the government. They have said that they will join hands with the striking employees to prevent the government from taking such measures.

The indefinite strike by the news, administrative, artists, Doordarshan Programme, stenographers, drivers and other staff including Group D in Prasar Bharati completely paralysed, news and all of the programmes in All India Radio and Doordarshan through out the country. The strike began on the midnight of 5th April 1999 demanding Pay parity with engineering and programme staff and rationalisation of pay of other staff of Akashvani and Doordarshan. The strike is peaceful.

In a joint statement Dipak Dholakia secretaryUnited Forum of Prasar Bharati Employees, Raghubir Dutt, Akashvani and Doordarshan Karmachari Sabgyuk Sangh and L, Umamageswaran President Akashvani and Doordarshan Administrative Staff Association said that the employees were forced to resort to strike, as the ministry of information had granted pay scales to some employees of the Programme and Engineering cadres, over and above the scales granted by the Fifth Pay Commission, for reasons best known to the ministry, while creating grave structural anomaly in the organisation. This has resulted in subordinates drawing higher salary than their supervisory officers have.

The strike has affected many news bulletins since midnight last night. While many bulletins could not go on the air, some went truncated. The management had to resort to broadcasting yesterday’s bulletins, as the strike was total. It has also affected the entire in-house production in Doordarshan, forcing the management to purchase news clippings from outside agencies at huge costs. .

Though the ministry had invited the representatives of the associations for talks yesterday, it could not resolve the impasse due to the rigid stand taken by the government. The information and broadcasting minister Pramod Mahajan earlier and the additional secretary in the ministry R R Shah refused to discuss the parity issues, whereas the main demand is removal of disparity and for rationalisation of pay structure of all cadres.