{"id":16207,"date":"2025-08-09T12:04:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T12:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=16207"},"modified":"2025-08-09T12:04:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T12:04:04","slug":"ptv-staff-unpaid-for-months-amid-alleged-plan-to-sell-properties-murtaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=16207","title":{"rendered":"PTV staff unpaid for months amid alleged plan to sell properties: Murtaza"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Hassan Murtaza alleged that Pakistan Television (PTV) is facing an artificial financial crisis, claiming the situation has left employees without salaries for several months.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, Murtaza accused the government of deliberately weakening the state broadcaster as part of a plan to privatise its valuable properties.<\/p>\n<p>He alleged that the privatisation lobby is targeting PTV\u2019s real estate assets, worth trillions of rupees, and warned of possible building auctions.<\/p>\n<p>He said delays in salaries and pensions were unnecessary and linked to the removal of the Rs35 PTV fee from electricity bills.<\/p>\n<p>Murtaza also held the Minister for Information and the PTV managing director responsible for what he described as the broadcaster\u2019s near-bankruptcy.<\/p>\n<p>The PPP leader criticised the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills and other state-run enterprises, terming it detrimental to workers and aimed at benefiting specific groups.<\/p>\n<p>Read: State TV spent nearly Rs140m on power bills<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, state-run Pakistan Television Headquarters racked up electricity bills exceeding Rs138.94 million over the past five fiscal years, according to official figures submitted to the National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>According to a written response submitted by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in the NA, PTV&#8217;s electricity expenditure has steadily risen each year, with a total of Rs138,936,472 spent from 2020-21 to 2024-25.<\/p>\n<p>In the fiscal year 2020-21, the electricity bill stood at Rs17,287,399, which increased to Rs24,045,382 in 2021-22, followed by Rs28,895,833 in 2022-23.<\/p>\n<p>The upward trend continued in 2023-24, when Rs37,693,235 was spent. Although the figure slightly decreased in 2024-25, it still amounted to Rs31,014,623.<\/p>\n<p>The cumulative total over the five years came to Rs138,936,472.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Hassan Murtaza alleged that Pakistan Television (PTV) is facing an artificial financial crisis, claiming the situation has left employees without salaries for several months. In a statement, Murtaza accused the government of deliberately weakening the state broadcaster as part of a plan to privatise its valuable properties. He alleged that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}