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Journalism of Courage
Come January 15 and a little cubicle in a corner of Chennai will turn into what is being seen as the world’s smallest radio studio and the country’s first campus community radio.
Anna University’s own radio station is likely to get kicking then with 16-hours relay time, said director R. Sridhar. Consuming 60 watt power, situated close to power centre Raj Bhavan and reasonably close to Poes Garden, the eight-by-five-feet studio will be the first campus radio to come up, two years after the Government decided to allow universities to operate their own radio stations.
The ambitious announcement was to have seen 1,000 radio stations by December, 2003. Instead, administrative wrangling came in the way of implementing the project as colleges spent time running around for licenses and approval from four ministries — Home Affairs, Communications and Information Technology, Human Resource Development and Information and Broadcasting – as they took their time processing applications.
Attributing the delay to inter-ministerial coordination, an I&B ministry official said the radio will be an extension of college magazines with political content edited out. As per rules for community radio news and current affairs, election and political broadcast are prohibited. And to prevent overlap with commercial FM operations, community radio stations will be non-commercial ventures — advertisement or sponsored programmes are prohibited.
While Anna University may be the first on campus radio, the community radio story could have had a better beginning in 2003 after the Government cleared the proposal. As per Government rules, only educational institutions with licenses can operate them. Government officials say it is a logistical nightmare to verify the veracity of communities intending to start radio operations. In all, 39 institutions, including universities, applied for licenses. Four of them, including the Film Institute of Pune, have been permitted to operate.
Sridhar, however, is working against time to get the studio going by Pongal, the harvest festival. With a mix of programmes on health, science, education and special programmes on fishermen, art and culture, the campus radio will transmit eight hours of programme for starters. This will be extended to 15 hours gradually.
‘‘As per rules, we cannot accept advertisements or sponsored programmes, so we are seeking the help of IIT Chennai and the MS Swaminathan Foundation to help us with programmes,’’ said Sridhar. As per the ministry’s estimates, community radio will have a limited range of five to 10-km radius, requiring a one-time capital investment of about Rs 10 lakh and the licence to furnish a bank guarantee for Rs 50,000.
Community radios are not new to India — private initiatives on cable, such as those started by the Kutch Mahila Samiti and by Voices in Karnataka have taken initiative to start operations after the Supreme Court ruled that airwaves are public property.
