(a) whether Prasar Bharti Board is formally functioning;
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) whether some members of the Prasar Bharti Board have recently retired;
(d) if so, the details thereof and the period for which they were appointed;
(e) whether the said members have retired before the expiry of their term; and
(f) if so, the reasons therefor?
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION & BROADCASTING (SMT. SUSHMA SWARAJ)
(a) & (b) : Yes, Sir. The Board is formally functioning with three part-time Members
namely, Shri B.G.Verghese, Prof. U.R.Rao and Dr. Abid Hussain; one Executive
Member, namely, Shri R.R. Shah and one representative of the Union Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, namely, Ms. Aruna Makhan, Additional Secretary &
Financial Adviser in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
(c) to (f) : Sub-section 3 of Section 6 of the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of
India) Act, 1990 provides that term of office of part-time Members shall be six years
but one-third of such Members shall retire on the expiration of every second year. Sub-
section 5 of Section 6 empowers the President to make such provisions as he thinks fit
for curtailing the term of office of some of the part-time Members in order that one-
third of them shall retire every second year. In order to meet the legal requirement of
these provisions, term of office of two part-time members, namely, Prof. U.R.Rao and
Dr. Abid Hussain has been curtailed in 1999 from 6 years to 4 years and the term of
office of another two part-time Members namely Prof. Romila Thapar and Shri
Rajendra Yadav has been curtailed from 6 years to 2 years.