New Delhi, Dec. 24: The Centre is revamping its media machinery, transferring officers, inducting new and trusted faces from outside the administrative cadre and setting the tone for propaganda in the year of the general elections.

The ball has been set rolling with the transfer of the additional director-general (news), Swagat Ghosh, to the Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity (DAVP), the information and broadcasting ministry’s media unit that distributes government advertisements. Ghosh is a senior Indian Information Service (IIS) officer. His transfer will give greater leeway to Deepak Chaurasia.

Chaurasia, a former journalist with the TV Today Hindi news channel Aaj Tak, was inducted from the private sector shortly before last month’s Assembly elections to launch Doordarshan’s 24-hour news channel DD News. Chaurasia was not from the IIS cadre and was appointed as consulting editor, a position that the IIS cadre resented.

The deputy director-general (administration), Sanjiv Datta, has been given temporary charge of Ghosh’s responsibility without being assigned the designation. As the ADG (news), Ghosh was technically responsible for the launch of the DD News channel but the executive authority for content vested with Chaurasia.

With Ghosh’s exit and the transfer of responsibility to an officer who is in charge of administration, Chaurasia is now set to get the power to fully manage the government’s news channel. The ostensible reason is that the TRP ratings of DD News, which is the only 24-hour terrestrial news channel and also a “must carry” on cable networks, have been good.

The government believes Chaurasia’s inputs need to be credited. But discontent brews among the IIS cadre who allege that the post of additional director-general (news) was being downgraded.

In another move, principal information officer (PIO) Sahab Singh, spokesman for the Government of India and head of the Press Information Bureau (PIB), was sounded on a transfer as director-general, Doordarshan, but he has reportedly refused. The post had fallen vacant with the premature transfer of S.Y. Quraishi, who was appointed by the previous I&B minister, Sushma Swaraj, in October this year.

The I&B ministry has already had to make an effort to reconcile the roles of the PIO and the media adviser to the ministry, Sudheendra Kulkarni. Kulkarni, a former journalist and a political appointee as officer on special duty in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), was also made media adviser to the I&B ministry to spruce up the PIB’s public relations by drafting smarter press releases and toning up media contact.

But with a PIO from the IIS cadre still very much in charge of the Press Information Bureau, Kulkarni’s role has got diluted over the weeks. Kulkarni was also asked to take a shot at resolving the tangle over the implementation of the conditional access system for cable television by negotiating with television industry stakeholders but that did not work out.

Since the elections, Kulkarni has been an infrequent visitor to the I&B ministry. He is understood to have conveyed that he has not got the co-operation he has sought in the PIB.

Shortly before the recent Assembly elections, Singh was asked if he would move to Doordarshan. Singh’s exit would have vested greater authority on Kulkarni. But Singh refused because the Doordarshan DG’s post is equivalent to joint secretary rank while as principal information officer he was in the special secretary rank. In fact, at one time, when he was pressured, Singh reportedly even offered to resign or go on a long leave.

The matter was left aside because of the Election Commission notifying the polls and because the commission’s code of conduct applied to transfer of senior officials.