Supposed to represent the voice of the Upper House and corresponding maturity, RSTV raised a lot of hopes when it was launched four years back. However, much of the promise stands belied as amateurism seems to have had an upper hand over professionalism as far as the privileged channel is concerned.
“It is becoming a workplace where a candidate’s knowledge of journalism is always ignored, if he comes from the ‘right’ kind of family or has been recommended by political big-wigs,” a senior professional said, expressing his dissatisfaction over the selection policy adopted by the channel.
With no business model in place for revenue generation, the channel which was launched on the 26th of August 2011 with a modest budget of Rs 28.94 crore has so far spent more than Rs 1,700 crore. The channel is funded by the Rajya Sabha, so it is quite understandable whose hard earned money is being splurged to keep the channel afloat.
This comes in the backdrop of not-so-good-times for several networks. Over the last one year, many private news channels — P-7 News Channel, Bhaskar News Channel and Jia News to name a few — have shut down, while many are struggling to sustain themselves due to a paucity of funds and resources. Primarily these channels failed to generate revenues through advertisement.
However in case of the RSTV, funds were never a problem, despite the fact that the channel had failed to generate any noticeable revenue since its inception. As compared to Lok Sabha TV’s (LSTV) annual budget, the RSTV budget for the year 2014-15 is 69.28 crore, which is almost five times than that of LSTV. As per the information with INNLIVE, 20 crore on an average is the annual budget for 19 channels of Doordarshan.
It may be noted that when the Upper House decided to launch its own channel, the LSTV was already on air and was telecasting live proceedings of Lok Sabha.
In a draft report, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has clearly stated that RSTV has no roadmap. The CAG even questioned the feasibility of RSTV in such a scenario. The CAG has also noted that the RSTV management preferred using outdated SD technology, whereas the requirement was of the latest HD technology. The CAG also proposed one studio instead of two — one for news and another for programming.
According to some media reports in 2013-14, the LSTV generated a revenue of 13.98 crore through awareness and publicity advertisements of the government and public sector units (PSU). RSTV has nothing to show on this count.
The CAG draft report revealed that till February 2012, even before the channel was fully functional, RSTV’s executive directors and executive editors spent 60 lakh on taxi rides.
The RSTV also has the distinction of appointing the first-ever non-bureaucratic CEO for a government-run TV, who barely has more than five years of journalistic experience. Sources told INNLIVE that present CEO Gurdeep Singh Sappal’s experience in journalism, before joining the RSTV, was not more than five years, which include a two-year stint at erstwhile BITV — one year as a video editor and one year as an associate producer. Sappal also worked for about four months in the marketing division of Doordarshan.
An office memo issued on 10 April 2012 by Rajya Sabha Secretariat, Gurdeep Singh Sappal was appointed as the CEO of RSTV on a contractual basis for a period of three years, on a consolidated fee of Rs 1,75,000. Interestingly, LSTV head’s salary is Rs 1.5 lakh. The consolidated fee paid to Sappal is what a joint secretary is normally paid. Though Sappal was appointed for a consolidated amount of Rs 1,75,000, his salary gets revised from time to time. According to a recent pay slip, a copy of which is with INNLIVE, the RSTV CEO was paid Rs 2,22,250 as a consolidated fee for the month of November, 2014.
Sappal executes three different official roles on government payroll. He is neither from the Indian Administrative Service nor from the Indian Information Service, yet he is a joint secretary level officer plus officer on special duty (OSD) to Rajya Sabha chairman as well as to the country’s vice president Hamid Ansari. According to RTI information, the job of RSTV CEO was never advertised. Unlike the LSTV CEO, whose job was prominently advertised, Sappal reaped the benefit of his proximity to some senior Congress leadership.
Sappal was reporting to Manish Chatrath, who is presently working as Chairman of Delhi Tourism & Transportation Development Corporation. Chatrath was known to be a close aide of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit when the Congress party’s political war room was at 15, Rakabganj Road. And that was the period when Sappal started getting close to Congress leaders, which helped him corner a lucrative post. Sappal’s name also cropped up when a PIL questioning the appointment of seniors officers of the rank of Joint Secretary and above in the Rajya Sabha secretariat came up.
The PIL was filed by the noted lawyer Prashant Bhusan, who challenged the validity of clause 6(A) of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat (Methods of Recruitment and Qualifications for Appointment) Order, 2009 and sought an order directing an inquiry into all the appointments made in the Rajya Sabha Secretariat since 2008.
Privileged sources told INNLIVE that it is not only Sappal, but the RSTV has also appointed 103 professionals on a contractual basis for a hefty sum, circumventing all the norms and procedure. For instance, Chetan Sanjan Dutta, assistant director to the CEO, is a bank clerk and has come on a deputation from Central Bank of India.
According to the sources in RSTV, Dutta is considered as the man Friday of Sappal and every file in the organization has to pass through his desk. Another beneficiary is Anil G Nair, who works as an executive editor (new media) with RSTV. He is known to be a family friend of Sappal. The appointment of Amrita Rai, whose closeness to a Congress leader is well known, as a senior anchor of RSTV, despite not fulfilling the minimum experience criteria for the post. Similarly, Rajesh Badal, executive editor of the channel, was apparently selected on the recommendation of Ahmed Patel, Congress party leader known for his proximity to the party’s president Sonia Gandhi.
There is also a heartburn over the appointment of Rajya Sabha MP Satyavrat Chaturvedi’s daughter, Nidhi Chaturvedi. Nidhi is working as a consultant with the channel for a consolidated salary of 80,000. A close relative of Sheila Dixit, Vinit K Dixit is also working as a consultant with RSTV, sources told INNLIVE. A close friend of Sappal, Girish Nikam, is another appointee who is being talked about, which puts a question mark over the impartiality of the appointments in the channel. Nikam is perhaps one of those privileged consultants who are not required to mark their attendance.
Before going to print, INNLIVE tried to contact RSTV CEO Sappal for his version. However, he remained incommunicative and skipped everytime.
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