Five ex-info secretaries urge govt to review state-run radio HQ decision

ISLAMABAD: Five former federal information secretaries who served as directors-general of state-run radio and, subsequently, as chairmen of its board of directors, have expressed their utter dismay at the government’s decision to lease out its flagship building in Islamabad's F-5 sector for private commercial use.

State-run radio would have to relocate its services to the premises of its academy in H-9 sector. The five former secretaries included Khwaja ljaz Sarwar, Syed Anwar Mahmood, Salim Gul Sheikh, Ashfaq Gondal and Mansoor Sohail.

In a statement to The News, they described the government's decision as ill-conceived. They also suspected that it might have been prompted by considerations not entirely related to state-run radio's financial status.

“It was not comprehensible how the rental income generated from the lease of state-run radio building would suffice to establish a media university as claimed by the government,” they said, in the statement.

They reminded the government that a project to establish a dedicated media university was conceived in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting over a decade ago, and considerable planning and effort had been undertaken, including collaboration with a US university.

“No state asset was proposed to be rented or sold for the purpose,” these former secretaries said. They advised the government to study the paperwork of the proposed project, which would be helpful in its endeavour to set up a media university in Islamabad.

They also suggested that the government take note of a recent report of the Federal Ombudsman, which recommended a number of measures to revitalise state-run radio including raising a "National University of Communication Sciences."

They regretted the decision to rent out a state asset, only a small part of which houses the headquarters secretariat of the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation. The rest houses more than a dozen purpose-built studios and allied engineering and broadcasting facilities for the production and transmission of state-run radio's foreign language programmes, world service, its central news organszation, current affairs programmes, FM101 transmissions, and its Islamabad station.

In their statement, the five former information secretaries said the state-run radio academy building only accommodates small studio for training purposes and is much too small to house all the services currently based in F-5. They wondered if the government was willing to spend a huge sum to recreate those facilities at the academy and to erect new buildings for the purpose.

Beyond any other consideration, state-run radio is one of the important symbols of the country's statehood, they said. State radio stations are commercially profitable anywhere in the world, as demonstrated by Voice of America and, nearer to home, by All-India Radio. All states subsidise their state radio stations for strategic reasons, as has been the case in Pakistan, the former secretaries said.

They urged the government to rescind the decision to lease out the flagship building of state-run radio, and to consider the many other available options to economise its operations without compromising on its strategic communications role.

They regretted that, because of many years of neglect, state-run radio's outdated transmitters were unable to transmit to their full design capacity, resulting in their transmissions being overwhelmed by stronger signals from across Pakistan's borders.

The former information secretaries hoped the government would study the detailed recommendations of the Federal Ombudsman in this regard, and not take any hasty decisions that may undermine the strategic interests of the country.