The guidelines, however, have failed to impress some of the prominent civil society groups long associated with the community radio sector, who fear losing out to government bodies in bagging community radio station license.
Civil society groups and organisations operating the country’s community radio sector are wary of the government’s apparent interest in roping in more government bodies to run community radio stations.
The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry recently came up with a set of revised policy guidelines for community radio stations in India. The guidelines state that the community radio stations cannot air political news but can broadcast news and current affairs from the state-owned All India Radio (AIR), among other amendments. Sources say the ministry is contemplating inviting more government bodies to apply for community radio station licences.
The guidelines, however, have failed to impress some of the prominent civil society groups long associated with the community radio sector, who fear losing out to government bodies in bagging community radio station licence.
“Even though there are no official papers on this, the government is giving out community radio licences to district rural development authorities, and even cooperative banks and other government bodies to increase the CR station count. In such cases, a community radio station cannot retain its original non-state, non-market identity,” said a member from a popular NGO running a community radio station, on condition of anonymity.
Civil society groups said they were not consulted by the government before notifying the amendments in the guidelines governing community radio.
“There has been no dialogue with the stakeholders involved in the community radio sector. The sector has suffered because of a lengthy, difficult application process and a difficulty in obtaining frequency from the IT ministry,” N Ramakrishnan from Ideosync Media Combine, a prominent CR capacity building organisation, said. He added that the government is yet to share the draft report on the functioning of CR in India framed by a private agency.
Similarly, Professor Vinod Pavarala, UNESCO Chair on Community Media at University of Hyderabad said, it is surprising that as part of the recent amendment on CR guidelines, the government has increased advertisement time per one hour of programme to seven minutes, from the current five minutes.
“A study conducted by One World South Asia, which works closely with the ministry, stated that CR stations struggle to get advertisements even for five minutes. So increasing it remains irrelevant in the current scenario,” he said.
Pavarala added that at the time when the Supreme Court has asked the government on why private FM channels should not be allowed to air news, an amended guideline on allowing CR stations to broadcast news and current affairs from AIR was not necessary.
“CR is by definition third-sector radio, independent of the state and the market. It doesn't make sense for it to re-broadcast AIR News, making a CR station look like an affiliate station of AIR,” he said.
“However, the good part is the amending rules governing the renewal of licenses as per TRAI recommendations, on which there was little clarity so far,” he said.
Government officials, however, refused any taking any official decision on roping in more government bodies in the CR sector.
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