Chairman of the state owned Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) – Dr. Prasad Samarasinghe has pledged to suspend the channel’s new web radio, internal sources say.
He has pledged this as a response to a group of SLRC employees protesting at the SLRC main lobby earlier this morning (Feb. 14).
The new web radio named as ‘Ru Radio’ was set to be launched today, coinciding with the 42th anniversary of the SLRC.
Although the SLRC chairman has denied knowledge of the launch, a test broadcast had commenced via the link https://rupavahini.lk/ru-radio and video advertisements had even been publiciized.
Meanwhile, it is also reported that the Ceylon Electricity Board had disconnected power to the SLRC yesterday over the non-payment of bills but the supply was temporarily reconnected after a portion of it was settled.
It is also said that the power supply to SLRC has been disconnected around 10 times in the recent past due to inability to settle electricity bills and the Finance Manager is said to be evading producers of teledramas that are demanding arrears payments.
According to Trade Unions of the SLRC, the state owned TV is deeply in debt, with the figure exceeding Rs. 3,000 million.
It is reported that the SLRC has not paid the VAT due to the state for several years and has not paid EPF and ETF of its employees for several months as well.
Although around 65 employees have left the SLRC under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme, the institute has been unable to pay their retirement gratuity, EPF and ETF, reports add.
Leveling serious accusations against the Minister of Media – Bandula Gunawardena and against the SLRC chairman over this situation, SLRC employees also allege that the transaction of handing over Channel Eye to Subhashkaran Alirajah is a corrupt one.
They charge that the transaction is a fraudulent one where Alirajah was given the TV frequency of Nethra TV instead, after converting it to Channel Eye. The frequency of Nethra TV had an islandwide coverage, something that the Channel Eye frequency did not.
