The people behind the district byline

In 2022 television advertising had fallen for two years while app viewing grew. The private-equity fund's plan proposed closing 180 of about 520 production and technical roles and using part of the saving to hire 60 digital engineers and producers. It estimated annual savings of ₹14 crore. Many of the people affected had fifteen years of service.

The stakes went beyond cost. A 24-hour channel needs those crafts every night, experienced camera operators are scarce outside Hyderabad, and the district live streams the app wanted would need people who understood news pictures. The fund's nominee director wanted the full reduction. The news director opposed any reduction at all.

I proposed a narrower plan. Ninety-two people would retrain over fourteen months in paid working time, in six-week modules on mobile production, live streaming and editing for the app. Thirty-eight roles with no digital equivalent, mainly satellite-van and tape-library work replaced by bonded cellular transmission and file storage, would close through a voluntary separation scheme paying 30 days' wages for each completed year of service, Natural attrition would absorb the remainder over two years. The board accepted the plan with annual savings of ₹6.2 crore rather than ₹14 crore, and the launch of district live feeds slipped by five months.

Eighty-four of the 92 completed the programme, and 79 now work wholly or partly for the app. Thirty-eight people left under the scheme; six later rejoined as transmission technicians when the live feeds expanded. Digital revenue rose from 15 per cent of the total in the year ended March 2022 to 24 per cent in the year ended March 2026, though hiring and product decisions contributed as much as retraining.

The company now treats a craft's decline as a workforce plan with a timetable rather than a single reduction. What I would do differently is the selection. Managers nominated the 92, and several people who would have chosen to retrain were never asked. An open application round would have been fairer and might have found better candidates.

In 2023 Charuvela relied on 610 district contributors across 31 bureaus. They were paid between ₹400 and ₹1,800 for each story used, and 148 of them had filed in at least 40 weeks of the previous year. Many carried our identity card. In July 2022 a contributor in Bhadradri Kothagudem district had broken his leg covering the Godavari floods, and we paid his hospital bill as goodwill because no cover existed. About a third of contributors also collected local advertising for us on commission.

A contributor dependent on us for years could reasonably claim to be an employee, and a reporter earning commission from a local hospital or builder could not be expected to report on it without fear. I proposed fixed-term employment as district correspondents for the 148 regular contributors, with salary, social security contributions and accident insurance, and an end to commission selling by anyone who reported for us.

The sales head objected, since district advertising through contributors brought in ₹3.1 crore a year. Pranitha Seshavarapu, our news director, judged the 40-week threshold too blunt. Finance preferred accident cover alone. On the nomination and remuneration committee's recommendation, the board approved the full proposal at ₹7.4 crore a year, and two planned bureau openings were deferred to pay for it.

By March 2024, 141 contributors had accepted employment and seven had declined to keep other work. The remaining contributors received a published rate card, payment within 15 days and group accident cover. Story volume fell by about 6 per cent in the first quarter and recovered by the third. District advertising moved to six employed sales executives and has rebuilt to ₹1.9 crore a year.

The change was in how we talk about the people we depend on. What I would do differently is speak to contributors before designing the scheme in Hyderabad. The 40-week rule excluded several people, most of them women, whose filing had been interrupted by caring responsibilities or illness, and an individual review route arrived three months late.

When the labour codes took effect in late 2025, about 1,100 of our employees had pay structures in which allowances made up more than half of total remuneration. Allowances had been easy to add at hiring and promotion. Under the codes' wider definition of wages, the excess is counted back into wages, which raises provident fund contributions and gratuity. Our actuarial adviser estimated a one-time increase of ₹9.2 crore in the gratuity provision and a recurring employer cost of about ₹5.6 crore a year.

The CFO proposed rebalancing every salary within the same cost to company. That was lawful and cost-neutral but would have reduced monthly take-home pay for most of the people affected, by about ₹1,900 on average and by proportionately more at the lower grades. The fund's nominee director supported the CFO: the investor was preparing its exit, and recurring cost mattered.

I proposed a line instead. For the 940 employees earning under ₹60,000 a month, the company would absorb the additional employer contributions so that take-home pay did not fall, at ₹3.9 crore a year. Above the line, structures would be rebalanced within existing cost, and each person would receive an individual letter showing the effect on take-home pay and retirement savings. To fund the protection, the April 2026 increment pool would fall from 8 per cent to 6.5 per cent. The board accepted it at a second meeting.

Eleven employees raised formal grievances, mostly from above the line, and four structures were corrected on review. Voluntary attrition for the year ended March 2026 was 17.8 per cent, against 18.4 per cent the year before, although I would not credit the pay decision alone. Senior producers felt the smaller increment most, and two left saying so.

Pay design is now checked against the wage definition every year rather than only at hiring. What I would do differently is start sooner. Parliament had passed the codes years earlier, and I treated their commencement as a distant event until it was close.