The Hindu : 1,334 posts in I&B Ministry to go

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 16, 2002

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National

1,334 posts in I&B Ministry to go

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI MARCH 15. With the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Sushma Swaraj, informing Parliament on Thursday that 1,334 posts had been identified for abolition in her Ministry, the decks seem to have been cleared for downsizing the I&B set-up.

Still, the number of posts the Ministry has agreed to surrender falls far short of the 5,603 found redundant by the Expenditure Reforms Commission (ERC) in the Ministry outside the realm of Prasar Bharati.

Of these 1,334 posts, the Finance Ministry has been told that only half will be done away with in this financial year. Should the Finance Ministry accept this, sources said there will be no loss to the I&B as at least 550 posts are vacant.

The media units where posts have been identified for abolition are the Press Information Bureau (PIB), Publications Division, Song and Drama Division, Research, Reference and Training Division (RR&TD); Directorate of Field Publicity (DFP), Directorate of Audio-Visual Publicity (DAVP) and Films Division (FD).

DFP faces the biggest cut with 482 of its 1,954 posts being put on the chopping block.

This, however, is subject to rationalisation of DFP's field formation and merger of Song and Drama, DFP and the Exhibition Wing of DAVP. At DAVP, 190 of the 889 posts will be surrendered.

While PIB will lose 134 of its 1,197 posts, Publications Division will surrender 112 out of 669, Song and Drama 26 out of 831, RR&TD 27 out of 56, and FD 363 of 1,177.

Besides, the I&B Ministry has told the Finance Ministry that an additional 100 posts can be surrendered in the Publications Division after yet another exercise in rationalisation.

In the case of DFP, ``253 posts can be surrendered ab initio and 127 additional posts can be surrendered if the Exhibition Wing is merged with DFP''.

Eager as the Government is to contain the non-Plan expenditure, the Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, has set aside Rs. 100 crore in the Budget for 2002-03 to implement the Voluntary Retirement Scheme that will be offered to a section of the surplus manpower identified in the 36 ministries/departments surveyed by the ERC.

In his Budget speech, Mr. Sinha indicated that nearly 12,200 of the identified surplus manpower of 42,200 in these ministries/departments will be abolished by the end of March this year.

However, he did not say as to how many posts each of the ministries/departments _ slated to feel the axe _ will have to surrender.

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