Prasar Bharati runs at 33% staff strength, yet salaries eat up over half its budget

Prasar Bharati, India's public broadcaster, is operating with barely a third of its approved workforce, according to its Annual Report 2024-25 — a structural paradox that has drawn little scrutiny despite its direct bearing on both the organisation's programming capacity and its financial efficiency.

According to the annual report 2024-25, as of March 31, 2025, Prasar Bharati had a total sanctioned strength of 45,791 posts across Akashvani and Doordarshan combined. Of these, only 15,193 were filled — leaving 30,598 positions vacant, a vacancy rate of approximately 66.8%. For Akashvani alone, the gap is starker: 26,129 posts sanctioned, 9,646 in position. Doordarshan mirrors the trend with 19,662 sanctioned against 5,545 in position.

What makes this figure especially striking is its juxtaposition with the broadcaster's cost structure. In FY24, establishment expenses — which cover salaries, wages, and related personnel costs — stood at ₹2,775 crore, making it the single largest expenditure head in a total spend of ₹4,859 crore. In other words, even while running at one-third capacity, personnel costs consumed over 57% of the broadcaster's total outgo.

The anomaly partly reflects the legacy of government-era service structures, where a large proportion of Prasar Bharati's workforce comprises employees on deemed deputation from the central government, whose leave salary and pension contributions are charged as expenditure by the corporation. 

But the sheer scale of unfilled posts raises questions about whether the sanctioned strength itself has been revised to reflect operational realities, or whether it remains a relic of an earlier era of terrestrial broadcasting that required dense manpower for transmission and production.

The financial consequence cuts both ways. On one side, the organisation is not bearing the full wage liability that a fully staffed broadcaster would incur — which partially explains how it generated an operational surplus of ₹184 crore in FY24 despite a heavy cost base. 

On the other, the hollowed-out headcount places constraints on content production, technical maintenance, and regional outreach — functions that Prasar Bharati is mandated to perform as a public service broadcaster with a nationwide footprint of studios and transmission centres.

The report also flags a sharp increase in programme-related expenditure, which jumped 62% year-on-year from ₹429 crore in FY23 to ₹695 crore in FY24. Analysts tracking the sector suggest this spike may reflect a greater reliance on outsourced content production to compensate for the depleted in-house creative workforce — a costlier route that compounds the efficiency loss from vacancies.

Compounding the picture is a significant prior period adjustment of ₹156 crore booked in FY24, a large portion of which pertains to the recognition of AIR commercial debtors that had not been recorded in earlier years. While this inflated the reported surplus for the year, it also points to longstanding gaps in financial reporting at field-unit level — gaps that a chronically understaffed back-office has struggled to close.

Prasar Bharati has been making efforts to modernise its human resource processes, including onboarding approximately 16,000 employees on the iGOT Karamyogi portal and migrating around 15,000 staff to the NIC-Zoho platform for leave and tour management. 

A new Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board regulation was also notified in September 2024. But with two-thirds of its posts lying vacant, the broadcaster faces a long runway before its operational capacity matches the scale its mandate demands.