Before the 17 October board meeting of Prasar Bharati, Jawhar Sircar, chief executive of the public service broadcaster that runs Doordarshan and All India Radio, was tense. With less than a month to go at the helm of Prasar Bharati, Sircar had been working overtime to prepare his arguments to revive the prime-time programming slot auction that could not materialize earlier because of internal dissent.

“This is the last battle of my service life and I better win it,” said the chatty CEO who resigned on 3 October, four months before his scheduled retirement due in February 2017. Sircar plans to leave the organization on 4 November, just after Diwali and will relocate to Kolkata.

“But, I am not running away. I won’t leave without completing the slot auction process,” he said.

Ever since Doordarshan shelved the auction plans after conducting two failed application rounds, Sircar has left no stone unturned to revive the process. At the 137th board meeting held at 11.30am on 17 October, a Monday morning, the entire board gathered in the conference room of Prasar Bharati’s office on the second floor of Press Trust of India building on Parliament Street. The agenda was to discuss the suspended auction as well as Doordarshan’s future.

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