ISLAMABAD: In an apparent attempt to compete with the growing private electronic media, the state-run Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) plans to heavily invest in its infrastructure.

“The PTV will invest Rs2 billion over the next two years on improving its infrastructure,” PTV Managing Director Mohammad Malick told Dawn on Friday.

He said the items to be purchased would include digital satellite news gathering (DSNG) vans, modern cameras, editing system and linking transmission equipment. High definition (HD) test transmission will shortly start and the system will be completely digitised to guarantee high quality transmission.

He said a new procurement policy had been put in place to obviate any corruption in the process and the past practice of purchasing items just to make money. In the past, he added, some individuals used to take decisions for procuring equipment for their departments through dubious biddings. He said that under the new policy, all departments were supposed to prepare their annual budget and submit details of the required items they needed. He said the head of procurement was being hired from the open market through a transparent procedure.

About the financial health of PTV, the managing director said there were outstanding payments of over Rs2bn against the corporation when he took over the position. The figures were fudged and receivables of Rs3bn were reflected in the statements to create a false impression that the organisation was running in profit, he added.

Mr Malick said debts of Rs2bn had been cleared and there were no more outstanding medical bills.

“The organisation does not owe money to any employee,” he said.

The MD said that an amount of Rs900m had been paid under the head of pensions and commutations and all the cases till 2014 would be cleared in January.

He said that PTV was a member of the prestigious Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, but the subscription fee had not been paid for years. A piled up amount of Rs10.25m has been paid to avoid any embarrassment.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2015