Prasar Bharati, which is at present facing acute crunch of staff, can now heave a sigh of relief as newly appointed CEO Jawahar Sircar’s top priority is providing adequate manpower to the public broadcaster and improving morale of employees.

Sircar, who took over as the CEO on Wednesday, told The Pioneer that at present the Prasar Bharati has a lot of vacancies which need to be urgently filled. A Task force has prepared a proposal that has been put forward to the DoPT, but it has not yet received clearance. Now the Prasar Bharati will make renewed efforts to expedite the approval so that posts could be filled immediately.

Moreover, morale of the employee is down as many of them have not got promotions during the past two decades, so steps will be taken in that direction also. However, while considering problems of employees sympathetically, Sircar said that he would also expect output from them as “it is a two-way traffic.”

He would take steps for digitalisation, improvement in service delivery and archives. Better coordination and collaboration between Doordarshan and AIR, especially in the field of news sharing, is one area on which the new CEO will like to focus.

Though the news content and reach of Doordarshan and AIR are remarkable, the presentation standards are not up to the mark, the former I&B Secretary pointed out and said that steps will be taken to improve presentation.

However, he is aware that the infighting within the organisations, which in the past hampered its growth, will be a major challenge that needs to be tackled. But Sircar is confident of tackling it by having a “proper look” into all the contentious matter.