PTV ex-chief Attaul Haq Qasmi, ex-info minister Pervez Rasheed appear before Supreme Court on Monday in case pertaining to lavish salary of Qasmi

ISLAMABAD: The losses of state-owned Pakistan Television Cooperation (PTV) touched Rs 618 million over the period of last seven years, Pakistan Today has learnt.

The losses of PTV were Rs 33 million in 2009-10. But within seven years, they have reached Rs 618 million.

The channel had difficulty earning profits as only Rs 1.1 billion profit could be earned in 2014-15; while in other years, the station remained in losses.

In 2015-16, the losses were recorded at Rs 12 billion, while the total expenditures in this year were recorded at Rs 1.1 billion with the income at Rs 1.009 billion.

In addition to this, the losses in the fiscal year 2016-17 decreased to Rs 618 million; the expenditure and income in the year was Rs 10.8 billion and Rs 10.2 billion, respectively.

Sources told Pakistan Today that over 5, 000 employees are working in PTV, out of which 3,975 are regular employees, while 192 are working as resource person, 295 daily wages, 449 contractual, 85 professional and 53 as anchors.

The government is paying Rs 4.02 billion to regular and Rs 773 million to non-regular employees. Moreover, the expenses of regular staff and non-regular are Rs 2.3 billion and Rs 52 million respectively.

“The channel is suffering the fiscal losses owing to political appointments made by the successive governments. The high ups of Ministry of Information have appointed a number of anchors as well as senior management on handsome salary package,” the sources added.

Recently, Managing Director Ahmad Nawaz Sukhera had prepared a restructuring plan of the PTV in which he had suggested to adopt the austerity measure to end the losses; however, the employees union moved the courts on this matter.

The MD had also briefed Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on the restructuring of the PTV last week; after which, the PM directed to implement the restructuring plan.

They said that the previous three chairmen of the PTV were getting Rs 1.5 million salaries from the department but they did nothing to bring reforms in the department.

It may be noted here that the Supreme Court (SC) has also summoned the Attaul Haq Qasmi, former information minister Pervez Rashid and other officials on Monday ( Today) to ascertain why the former chairman allegedly received over Rs 270 million in salary and employee benefits during his two-year term.

Atta-ul-Haq Qasmi remained chairman of the state-run TV for two years and resigned from his post on December 14, 2017.

Secretary information Sukhera earlier revealed before the apex court that Qasmi had received at least Rs 2.7 million every month as his salary besides other benefits. The former chairman was also allocated an advertising budget for a programme that he used to host on the PTV.