The radio as a medium of communication has made a comeback in view of the growing popularity of FM transmission and its reach, Information & Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley said today.
Delivering the inaugural address at the 6th National Community Radio Sammelan, Mr Jaitley said community radio as a variant of the medium had provided a value addition to the narrative by meeting the information needs regionally on a variety of issues while capturing the language, culture and social practice.
The Minister said the scope for expansion in the sector was vast in view of the communication needs at the regional level. It had the power to connect with people by exchanging experiences and content of programmes. The government would facilitate the medium through policies which would spur the growth in the total number of operational community radio stations in the future, he added.
The Minister lauded the efforts of the stations which focussed on sustained campaigns on critical issues related to health and education. This had led to people imbibing the spirit of the messages, he said.Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said that community radio (CR) could play an important role in dissemination of information about government schemes and policies to the common man in their local language, which in many cases has not reached them through conventional media of communication such as television and FM radio.
Speaking on the occasion, I&B Secretary Sunil Arora said community radio empowered people who generally found no voice in traditional media. It provided empowering experiences to farmers, local fishermen and folk artistes who shared their stories in programmes conducted by the community radio stations.
The Ministry had opened a Community Radio Facilitation Centre at Shastri Bhawan to streamline approval process for the CR stations, he added. Permission has been given to set up 439 CR stations out of which 191 are already in operation.The winners of the 5th National Community Radio Awards were also felicitated. The award for the most creative/innovative programme content was presented to ‘Radio Benziger’ from Kerala for their program ‘Sukrutham’.
The other categories included Awards for Program with Best Theme, Community Engagement, and Promoting Local Culture. They also released the Community Radio Compendium and Community RadioMap which illustrated Community Radio Stations across the nation.