How Prasar Bharati’s Governance Drift Silenced Accountability
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CAG reports reveal how unreconciled crores, weak internal controls, and ritual compliance have turned India’s public broadcaster into an institution drifting without self-knowledge.
By P. SESH KUMAR
New Delhi, December 29, 2025 —Prasar Bharati was envisioned as India’s moral and informational compass—a public broadcaster insulated from political whim, anchored in professional autonomy, and sustained by sound governance. Yet a close reading of successive Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports reveals a quieter but far more unsettling story: one of institutional amnesia, where unresolved balances linger year after year, internal controls weaken by inertia, and managerial accountability dissolves into ritual compliance.
This note integrates two interlinked audit narratives—the persistence of unreconciled financial flows and deeper administrative-performance failures—to show how governance decay does not erupt overnight but accumulates silently.
What emerges is not a tale of fraud or flamboyant scandal, but something more dangerous: an organisation slowly losing the ability to know itself. In that silence, accountability withers, performance falters, and public trust erodes.
When the Signal Fades
Every institution tells a story about itself. In well-governed organisations, that story is coherent, verifiable, and self-correcting. In poorly governed ones, the story fractures-numbers stop speaking to each other, processes repeat without learning, and warnings echo without consequence. Prasar Bharati’s recent audit history belongs squarely to the second category.
At the heart of this slow unravelling lies a deceptively mundane accounting entry: “Remittances to/from HQ and DDOs in transit/reconciliation.” In theory, it is a neutral bookkeeping mechanism-a temporary bridge between sending and receiving offices. In reality, it has become a graveyard of unresolved transactions, quietly accumulating year after year.
In 2017–18, this unreconciled figure stood at ₹408.67 crore. The Comptroller and Auditor General was unambiguous: these were internal transactions that should have netted to zero. They did not. Nor was this an isolated lapse. The same observation had already appeared in earlier years and would reappear again-₹443.78 crore in 2018–19, ₹375.73 crore in 2019–20, and still over ₹300 crore in subsequent accounts. The numbers changed; the failure did not.
This persistence is not an accounting curiosity-it is a governance diagnosis. In any organisation, unreconciled balances of this magnitude are red flags signalling breakdowns in control, ownership, and accountability. In a public broadcaster funded by taxpayers, they are symptomatic of a deeper malaise: an inability to close the loop between transaction, verification, and responsibility.
When Accounting Becomes Amnesia
What makes this episode particularly unsettling is that the problem is not technical complexity. These are not derivative contracts or actuarial valuations. They are simple internal transfers. When such basics remain unresolved year after year, it signals something more corrosive than incompetence—it suggests organisational indifference.
CAG’s audit reports repeatedly underline this concern. They point not merely to unreconciled figures, but to the absence of effective internal controls, weak management information systems, and a lack of mechanisms to ensure that audit observations lead to corrective action. In effect, Prasar Bharati appears to suffer from a kind of institutional amnesia: issues are noted, acknowledged, and then quietly forgotten.
This pattern is visible well beyond reconciliation. Earlier performance audits revealed persistent weaknesses in revenue realisation-advertisement bills raised late, collections delayed, and dues left outstanding for years. These were not failures of market conditions but of administrative discipline. In several instances, revenue loss occurred simply because systems were not followed, reminders not issued, or accountability not fixed.
Similarly, asset management has long been a soft underbelly. Large portions of Prasar Bharati’s physical infrastructure-studios, transmitters, land parcels-have historically lacked proper verification or valuation. Assets existed on paper but not always in confirmed physical or functional form. Such gaps distort depreciation, planning, and investment decisions, and erode confidence in the reliability of financial statements.
What emerges is a portrait of an institution where controls exist in form but not in force; where compliance is episodic rather than embedded; and where learning from past audits is disturbingly absent.
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The Governance Cost of Silence
The most damaging consequence of these failures is not financial loss alone-it is strategic paralysis. When leadership lacks reliable, real-time data, decision-making becomes reactive. When internal controls are weak, risk becomes invisible. When audit findings repeat without resolution, accountability dissolves into ritual.
This is where Prasar Bharati’s predicament becomes especially troubling. As a public broadcaster, it is not merely an administrative body; it is a custodian of democratic discourse. Its credibility depends not only on editorial independence but also on institutional integrity. A broadcaster that cannot reconcile its own accounts risks losing moral authority when it speaks truth to power.
In governance theory, this is known as “control drift”—a slow erosion where systems appear functional but no longer perform their intended role. The danger lies precisely in the absence of crisis. Because nothing collapses dramatically, nothing changes.
A Global Mirror: What Others Do Differently
Contrast this with institutions like the BBC or NHK. These organisations are not immune to criticism, but their governance architecture treats financial discipline as non-negotiable. Internal audit findings trigger time-bound corrective action plans. Reconciliations are automated, monitored, and reviewed at board level. Asset registers are living documents, not archival artefacts. Most importantly, unresolved audit issues are treated as governance failures, not accounting inconveniences.
The lesson is not that Prasar Bharati lacks capability-it lacks institutional insistence. Systems exist; enforcement does not. Data exists; accountability does not follow.
From Noise to Signal: Lessons That Must Be Learnt
The recurring audit observations across years tell a simple but uncomfortable truth: governance does not fail loudly; it fades quietly. Prasar Bharati’s challenge is not to invent new frameworks but to take existing ones seriously.
Reconciliation must become a discipline, not a seasonal ritual. Internal audit must evolve from a procedural checkbox to a strategic early-warning system. Asset verification must be continuous, not episodic. Above all, audit observations must trigger ownership, timelines, and consequences-not polite acknowledgements.
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Until this happens, Prasar Bharati will continue to broadcast clarity to the nation while operating internally in a fog of unresolved numbers and diffused responsibility. The signal may go out loud and clear-but the institution behind it will remain dangerously out of tune with itself.
Comparative Governance Lens: Prasar Bharati vs Global Public Broadcasters
What the Contrast Reveals
| Dimension | Prasar Bharati | BBC (UK) | NHK(Japan) | What the contrast reveals |
| Legal & Governance Architecture | Statutory autonomous body under Prasar Bharati Act, 1990, but with heavy dependence on government grants and approvals. Functional autonomy diluted by administrative controls and funding dependence.
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Operates under Royal Charter with clearly ring-fenced editorial and financial autonomy; accountability to Parliament through structured oversight.
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Public corporation under Broadcast Law, insulated from executive interference through legally protected independence.
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Autonomy on paper does not guarantee autonomy in practice; governance maturity depends on insulation from routine bureaucratic control.
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| Approach to Financial Reconciliation
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Persistent unreconciled balances (Rs 300–400+ crore annually) across multiple years; reconciliation treated as an accounting formality rather than a governance necessity.
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Monthly reconciliations are mandatory; unresolved balances trigger escalation to Audit & Risk Committee.
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Continuous reconciliation embedded in enterprise systems; unresolved items flagged in real time.
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Where reconciliation is delayed, governance weakens; where it is continuous, credibility strengthens.
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| Internal Audit Effectiveness
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Exists structurally but lacks enforcement power; audit observations repeat across years with limited closure accountability.
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Strong internal audit with board-level oversight; audit findings tracked to closure with timelines.
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Internal audit tightly integrated with compliance and risk management; corrective actions monitored.
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Audit without enforcement becomes ritual; audit with authority becomes reform.
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| Management Information Systems (MIS)
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Fragmented, often backward-looking; poor integration between finance, operations, and assets.
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Integrated digital dashboards provide real-time operational and financial intelligence.
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Advanced MIS with predictive analytics and performance dashboards.
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Without real-time data, leadership governs reactively rather than strategically.
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| Asset Management & Verification | Incomplete verification of land, buildings, and broadcast assets; valuation often outdated or provisional.
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Periodic valuation, impairment testing, and lifecycle management standardised.
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Highly regimented asset lifecycle management with annual verification cycles.
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Assets unmanaged become liabilities disguised as strength.
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| Revenue Management & Recovery
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Delayed billing, weak follow-up, long-pending dues; revenue leakages noted in multiple audits.
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Automated billing and receivables tracking; strong contractual enforcement.
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Centralised billing with tight monitoring and accountability.
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Revenue efficiency reflects organisational discipline more than market conditions.
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| Response to Audit Observations
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Repetitive observations across years; limited evidence of systemic correction.
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Structured response matrix; unresolved issues escalate to Board and Parliament.
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Institutional learning embedded; repeat observations are rare.
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Governance maturity is measured by how quickly mistakes stop repeating.
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| Culture of Accountability
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Compliance-driven, procedural, often reactive.
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Performance-driven, accountability embedded in leadership roles.
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Discipline-driven, with cultural emphasis on precision and responsibility.
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Culture determines whether rules live or merely exist.
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| Public Accountability Ethos
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Often defensive; audit viewed as external scrutiny rather than internal support.
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Audit viewed as essential to credibility and public trust.
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Audit integrated into organisational pride and integrity.
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Institutions mature when they stop fearing scrutiny.
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Why This Comparison Matters
What this comparison reveals is uncomfortable but necessary: Prasar Bharati’s challenges are not about lack of talent or intent- they are about governance muscle memory.
Where the BBC or NHK treat audit as an internal compass, Prasar Bharati still treats it as an external inspection. Where others institutionalise correction, Prasar Bharati documents deviation. Where others convert data into decision-making power, Prasar Bharati often allows data to stagnate in ledgers and annexures.
The result is not collapse—
but drift. A slow erosion of managerial sharpness where unresolved issues become background noise, and “in transit” becomes a permanent state rather than a temporary condition.
Integrative Insight
The enduring lesson from Prasar Bharati’s audit trail is this: governance decay rarely announces itself—it accumulates quietly in unreconciled balances, ignored observations, and systems that no longer speak truth to power. Accountability is not restored by new policies or committees, but by disciplined closure of what is already known. Until that discipline is institutionalised, reform will remain rhetorical and trust will remain fragile.
The tragedy is not that Prasar Bharati lacks capability—it is that it has not yet made governance reflexive. Until reconciliation becomes instinctive, internal audit authoritative, and leadership intolerant of unresolved exceptions, reform will remain cosmetic.
True reform will begin not with new policies, but with a simple institutional habit: Closing the loop—every time, without exception.
(This is an opinion piece. Views are personal)
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