Sixteen years after AIR announcers were included in the permanent employees' rolls after a long-drawn struggle, they are on the offensive again. This time seeking to remedy an anomaly that sentences each of them to spending their lives in the same post they began their careers with. Strange but true: while clerks and technicians can be promoted, an announcer -- and there are more than 800 of them in AIR -- remains an announcer till retirement.

Why? Simply because there is no clear policy on announcers' promotions.``We do virtually everything: from production to script-writing to broadcasting. At the smaller centres, we run the entire show'', says Chetan Jani, secretary of the Vadodara unit of the Akashwani Announcers' Association.

Well-placed sources in AIR confirm that Jani's claim was not baseless. ``Announcers in some stations, including Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhuj, Godhra, Surat, Ahwa and Daman, have been producing plays and programmes for years, but they will never be promoted to programme executive (drama), says one.

All they can do is watch from the sidelines as transmission executives and engineering assistants -- the very same people they work with in the recording rooms -- move on to higher posts and better salaries.``At our recent national convention, AIR Director-General O P Kejriwal described us as the public face of broadcasting. But we have no face where it really matters'', laments a frustrated announcer in Vadodara.

According to Jani, transmission executives could move on to being programme executives, assistant station directors or even station directors, while engineering assistants could be promoted to senior engineering assistant, assistant engineer and station engineer.

``But though we are the real performers, we'll never be promoted to anything. At the most, our grades will improve, but not our organisational status'', he shrugs.

The announcers, who have been wearing black badges for the last seven days in the run-up to their mass casual leave on Monday and Tuesday, seek to be merged with AIR's organised cadre and be considered on par with transmission and programme executives on pay-scales.

And, as AAA national secretary-general Arun Kumar Sinha says, ``When we talk of a merger, we mean real promotion and status, not just upgradation. By upgrading us, the authorities could claim to have promoted us.''

At the announcers' national convention on May 5, Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Mukhtar Ahmed Naqvi had assured them that 80 per cent of their problems would be solved in a month.

On May 6, a delegation of nine programme announcers had separate meetings with Union I&B Minister Sushma Swaraj, Naqvi and Kejriwal and were given similar assurances. Nothing has happened so far.

Remembers an announcer, ``Naqvi's inaugural speech at the convention was inspiring but the Union government's subsequent dilly-dallying has been heart-rending.'' Naqvi had said, ``Announcers of the AIR are artists and in skill they are managers of the entire show of broadcasting in India.''``But'', points out Jani, ``we're still playing second fiddle.''