Haryana: Protest Dharna by Closed Hisar DD Kendra Employees Enters 454th Day

New Delhi: Casual employees of Doordarshan Kendra have been on dharna for over 450 days in Sector 16 of Haryana’s Hisar, but their voices are going unheard.  The centre was the lone Kendra in Haryana.

The jobless casual employees, supported by local residents, have been demanding the restart of the Doordarshan (DD) Kendra in Hisar for over a year now. The DD station wound up operations in January last year, after it was shifted to Chandigarh, says a report in The Tribune.

Since then, the out of job employees have been protesting under the banner of Doordarshan Bachao Samiti.

The DD station in Hisar was inaugurated by Union information & Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj in 2002, when she was in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. The late BJP leader hailed from Haryana. However, in December 2022, the present I&B Minister Anurag Thakur announced the shifting of the station to Chandigarh.

The protesting employees told The Tribune that the DD Kendra, spread over around 8 acres, was a “valuable asset” for the city, as it had “studio, production control room, residences, and used to telecast programmes daily from 3 pm to 7 pm. The programmes included a daily news bulletin, kisan programmes, cultural programmes, bhajan, folk etc on a daily basis.” The Kendra also housed a residential complex for its employees.

Inder Singh Malik, president of the samiti, told The Tribune: “The kendra is a necessity for the state as it was useful for the public and the government. Many cultural, educational, agricultural, and healthcare-related programmes were telecast from here.”

The agitating employees said they were disheartened by the apathy of the BJP-led Haryana government, which failed to take up the matter with the Centre, despite being a “double engine” government.

Citing the example of Himachal Pradesh, another employee said the Shimla DD Kendra faced a similar fate but the HP government took up the matter with the Centre and was able to get it running again.

The Samiti said even after 454 days of their struggle, they would continue till their demands are met and the DD Kendra in Hisar is reopened.

 The protesting employees have been drawing support from various political parties, including Congress and Indian National Lok Dal.

In fact, last year, Congress leader Deepender Hooda had visited the protest site and had promised to “do everything possible” to save it.

 Criticising the BJP government, Hooda was quoted by Times of India as saying: “The Haryana government could not save the Rail coach factory and the International  Airport, and has now closed the DD Kendra,” adding that the state government had “failed to bring any new project into Haryana in nine years”.

 With election season heating up and the change of guard in Haryana government with a new Chief Minister replacing M L Khattar, it remains to be seen if the employees’ long struggle bears fruit.