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Monday, February 2, 2015

Recollections of a Communicator: Lessons in Communication for civil servants

New Delhi, Feb. 1 (ANI): The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has decided to hold a workshop for senior bureaucrats of various departments of the Government of India to tell them the importance of dissemination of information to ensure transparency in governance.
 
The organization which has the task of disseminating information to the media is the Press Information Bureau. It was set up in 1938 and entrusted the task of providing information about the policies and programmes of the government in the form required by the press as news stories. The information was to be given as facts without comment. There was also a directive that there should be rigorous exclusion of political or controversial material, except when attributable to a definite source. 
 
The Press Information Bureau has officers attached to each Ministry of the Government of India, who are known as Departmental Publicity Officers. Their duty is to gather information about the activities of the Ministry to which they are attached and disseminate it to the media and also provide feedback to the government.
 
Initially, the Press Information Bureau was a part of the Home Department, but it came under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting soon after Independence.
 
The Press Information Bureau has thirty- odd offices in the country, which were connected through teleprinters and information was provided to the media in the language in which the newspapers were published in the regions. Today, they are connected through the internet.
 
The regional or branch offices also provide the feedback in the form of reactions to government policies as reflected in the media to the headquarters to be sent to the various departments.
 
To start with, the Department Publicity Officers were recruited from the personnel who had earlier experience in the press in the country. Eminent journalists who joined the Press Information Bureau, to name a few, were D.R. Mankekar of the Times of India, Desmond Young of the Statesman, and Kuldeep Nayar who was the Chief Editor of the Statesman.
 
In the sixties, the government decided to institute the Indian Information Service. The candidates were selected from those who competed in Central Services examination and Officers of the Service were provided training in the Indian Institute of Mass Communications.
 
The normal instinct of a civil servant is not to disclose information about his work. The decision whether to disseminate information about a decision is taken at the level of the Minister or the Secretary of the Department.
 
The Information Officer attached to the Ministry makes efforts to get the information and if necessary get it cleared from the Minister or Secretary. In practice, the Departmental Publicity Officer has a difficult task in getting information from senior bureaucrats.
 
The information is released to the press in the form of press notes, hand outs or background notes. On occasions, the Departmental Publicity Officer arranges press conferences; the Minister or the Secretary of the Department discloses the information and answers questions from the correspondents.
 
The Departmental Publicity Officer is also required to respond to queries from the correspondents or newspapers and electronic media.
 
The Principal Information Officer acts as the spokesman of the Government of India and ensures that the activities of all departments receive good publicity. It was my privilege to function as the Principal Information Officer of the Government of India from 1985 to 1992 and also function for some time as the Information Advisor to the Prime Minister.
 
The role of the Press Information Bureau has become more complex from what it was two or three decades ago. Firstly, there has been a proliferation of newspapers all over the country. Secondly, we have today over a hundred television channels in different languages. The present decade has also seen the emergence of social media, with twitter disseminating information across the country and the world over.
 
Earlier, the information was given by the government to the media through accredited correspondents or announcements which were accessed by the media, but today with the emergence of the social media, information is directly available to the people.
 
To meet the new challenges, the Government of India has been making changes. The UPA Government introduced the concept of setting up a Group of Ministers entrusted with the task of disseminating information, which has a political element. That is no longer in practice now.
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aware of the need for effective communication with the people, which is apparent through his 'Mann Ki Baat' programme over the All India Radio, and the use of the digital media in the form of twitter to convey information.
The initiative taken by Arun Jaitley, who is the Finance and Information Minister, to hold a workshop would surely result in free flow of information about activities of the Government of India.
 
The bureaucrat, who is normally hesitant to part with information, would become more communicative.
 
The views expressed in the above article are that of Mr. I. Ramamohan Rao, Former Principal Information Officer, Government of India. He can be reached on his e-mail: raoramamohan@hotmail.com. (ANI).

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