[cr-india] Minister on CR

[sajan venniyoor]

Jaipal Reddy for setting up of more community radio stations 
Deccan Herald - Dec 24, 2004

The government on Tuesday said that there is scope for setting up 4,000 community radio stations across the country.

Addressing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Culture, I&B Minister S Jaipal Reddy said community radios have socio-economic and cultural relevance and added that his ministry is trying to rationalise and simplify the procedure for the setting up of such radio stations.

As part of this, the ministry is considering to put a time limit for clearance of proposals by the other ministries involved in the process, he said.

The members of the consultative committee were informed that the only community radio station set up by the Anna University in Chennai in February 2004 is a success and is emanating four hours of daily programme.

As on date, a total of 60 applications have been received, of which 38 eligible applications have been sent to the other ministries concerned for clearance, Mr Reddy said. The letters of intent have been signed in 26 cases and licence agreements signed in 10 cases, he said.

The members were in consensus about the usefulness of the scheme and, therefore, its adoption at a large scale. They, however, expressed concerns about the funding ability of the community and organisations in the far-flung and remote rural areas since the community radio stations are run on a no-profit basis. 

Also the restriction of advertisement time at the rate of only four minutes per hour leave little chance of generating enough funds to run the station, they said.

Some members felt even the original start-up cost of Rs 4-10 lakh may not be possible for rural communities and the government should work out a strategy to overcome this problem.

One of the members suggested that each MP may fund at least two such stations in his/her constituency from the MPLAD fund.

Among those who attended the meeting included: Dinsha Patel, Dharmendra, Dr Satyanarayan Jatiya, Hannan Mollah, S Sudhakar Reddy, Usha Verma, Bhartruhari Mahtab, P K Maheshwari, Vijay J Darda, E M Sudarsana Natchiappan, Ajay Maroo, Shatrughan Sinha, S C Chandran and Sanjay Raut.
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