The organisation that had announced the birth of Pakistan is about to die as the government does not seem interested in making the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) financially viable.
The Radio Pakistan has been in the process of a slow death since 2007 with the government constantly slashing its operational and developmental budget every year and the accumulative deficit of the organisation is expected to reach Rs 2.27 billion in the next financial year (2012-13).
In the year 2006-07, the government had provided Rs 1.5 billion to the PBC against the demand for Rs 1.68 billion and the deficit in that year was Rs 182 million. The overall deficit of the PBC in the year 2011-12 increased to Rs 2.12 billion as the government had provided Rs 2.10 billion against the demand of Rs 2.22 billion.
The total salary bill of the PBC is Rs 4.2 billion for the 3,200 employees and 4,200 pensioners. This amount does not include the salaries of the contractual employees.
Similarly, the government has also been slashing the allocation under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) as the allocated amount has never been released. In the year 2007-08, Rs 483.9 million were allocated for the PBC under the PSDP, but Rs 197.23 million were released.
The PSDP allocation continued to be drastically reduced and in the year only Rs 32 million were released against the allocation of Rs 217.7 million. Official documents available with Pakistan Today indicate that the constant decrease in the PBC budget has increased the financial woes of the organisation.
As per the financial statement of the PBC for the year 2012-2013, the projected budget is Rs 1.7 billion that includes Rs 1.05 billion (arrears and pension), Rs 58.76 million production expenses, Rs 514.956 million operational expenses and Rs 76 million repair and maintenance expenses but the government has sanctioned only Rs 300 million.
Against the total demand of Rs 5.03 billion for the PBC, the government has, however, approved Rs 2.27 billion that includes Rs 782 million for employees-related expenses, Rs 430 million to compensate the employees under the Supreme Court order and Rs 1.55 billion for production, operational and administrative expenses.
To further add to the financial burden of the PBC, 661 employees were regularised on the directives of the government. The impact of this regularisation will be Rs 70.5 million per year. Similarly, 94 contractual employees up to the age of 50 years are also being regularised and this will cost another Rs 9 million.
