ISLAMABAD - The performance assessment is being conducted in Pakistan Television Corporation that would ultimately decide the fate of hundreds of contractual employees of the organisation. Sources in the state-run TV channel told TheNation that performance assessment of some departments had been completed while the remaining task would be completed in a week or more. "Those contract employees with unsatisfactory performance will be placed first in surplus pool and then their services could be terminated," said the sources. "There was constant pressure from contractual employees for their regularisation amid financial crunch in the organisation, therefore the PTV bosses decided to first conduct a performance assessment and then regularise only competent and eligible contract employees while placing others in the surplus pool," said the sources. Well-placed sources further told this correspondent that performance assessment was being conducted of all PTV employees irrespective of their job status and department. On the other hand, some contract employees who are also called resource persons, talking to TheNation on condition of anonymity raised doubts over the transparency of ongoing performance assessment and termed it a way to favour blue-eyed contract employees. "Contract employees were even deprived of 20 per cent raise in salaries in 2008 budget while regular employees through the channel of CBA union got charter of demands approved by the PTV high-ups and are enjoying 45 per cent raise in their salaries," said a resource person of PTV News. He was skeptical about the transparency of ongoing performance assessment process and said that favouritism was going to likely prevail over professionalism. When asked, PTV Deputy Managing Director Shahid Nadeem said that PTV Headquarters had started receiving comments and assessment from all stations and on the basis of those comments, the PTV Headquarters would start evaluation process. He said that the organisation was carrying out performance assessment of only resource persons as the regular employees were already passing through assessment and evaluation process. "Annual Appraisal Reports (AARs) are written of all regular employees, therefore, there is no need of conducting separate performance assessment of them", he stated. Nadeem claimed that the whole process was being conducted transparently. When asked whether PTV could terminate the services of those contractual employees whose performance would be unsatisfactory, he said being the state-run media organisation; PTV would not adopt the extreme measures rather would ask such contractual employees to improve their performance. "Only those resource persons could be shown the door whose assessment report will be indicating gross violation of standard practices," he added. PTV DMD said the cardinal objective of the performance assessment was to separate good workers from bad workers. "Good resource persons would be regularised under the ambit of already issued directive of the Prime Minister for regularisation of contractual employees," he observed. He said the issue of regularising resource persons would be taken up during the next PTV board meeting. Nadeem said that PTV had adopted cross-checking mechanism to make the whole performance assessment process impeccable. "PTV managers usually give positive reports in such cases on personal as well as humanitarian grounds, therefore the doubt about victimisation stands nowhere," he observed.