NEW DELHI: Casual employees working in the News Service Division of All India Radio have not been paid their emoluments since December 2009 and also face discrimination and corruption with regard to work and payment.

According to some persons employed as correspondents/editors and production assistants, their names have not been forwarded by their section to Prasar Bharati despite notifications issued by the latter.

The list had been sought �in order to frame scheme for regularization of casual employees', according to the notes of 5 May 2008, 18 February 2009 and again on 29 December 2009.

Names of casual employees only in some categories had been sent as this would weaken the strength of Indian Information Service officers, it was alleged.

The casual staff members have also alleged in chats with radioandmusic.com that they were asked to fill forms more than six months earlier for getting payments directly into their bank accounts, but this was not being done. They alleged that persons working on the cash counters often demanded a fee from casual employees for making their payments.

Admitting that there had been some delay in payments, senior AIR sources told radioandmusic.com that this had happened because of late release of budgets. However, the sources claimed that payments had been made in just over 600 cases till March 2010. It was also claimed that payments were being made electronically since January to casual employees who had fulfilled all the formalities.

If someone takes bribes for making payments, the employees can convey this to us without fear,... an official said.

When asked why the casual employees – some of whom had been working since 1984 – had not been regularised, the official said there was a ban on new recruitments in Prasar Bharati and denied the claim of the casual employees that the ban had been lifted.

Admitting that some Indian Information Service officials employed in other Ministries or departments were working as casual employees in NSD and being paid for this, the official said there were specific rules for this purpose. The officer also said that the work of a news editor could not be given to a casual employee and had to be given to an IIS official as it involved taking responsibility.

The production assistants working as casual artistes number 250 but just around 160 were actively being given work. There are around eight correspondents/editors who are casual employees.

The NSD broadcasts news in 27 languages in a total of 467 news bulletins in 44 regional news units.

In a press meet last week, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni had said that the Group of Ministers headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram had told Prasar Bharati should expedite setting of recruitment boards since the rules for various cadres of employees had been drawn up. The GoM felt that this should be done by 31 July this year and sent to the Finance Ministry by 31 August. The GoM, she said, had also decided that the Finance Ministry should be sent a list of the present staff position and the staff required by the pubcaster.

Meanwhile, she said that she had personally taken up with the Director Generals of Doordarshan and particularly All India Radio the question of regularising casual employees who had been working in that capacity for more than 25 years.

The 30-member Standing Committee of Members of Parliament on Empowerment of Women, headed by Member of Parliament Chandresh Kumari, in its Action Taken Report in March this year sought a clarification from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry with regard to casual employees as it found the reply of the Ministry about two different schemes for regularisation of casual employees to be contradictory to the reply given last year when it had said there was no approved scheme.

The Committee had in 2009 held Prasar Bharati guilty of unfair practices in not regularising and not giving adequate remuneration to around 680 employees in Doordarshan and around 2200 in All India Radio who had been working as casual employees for up to 15 years in different capacities including news editors and news readers.