COMMUNITY RADIO

“Community radio” is the voice of the community. Its main focus is to execute maximum benefits in the community by concentrating on Education, Health, Environment, Agriculture, Rural and Community Development.

The community radio station usually extends the following benefits to the Local community, particularly to those in rural areas:

• Enhancing participation of the people in the development process.
• Capacity building in the rural areas through education.
• Providing opportunities to people to upgrade their skills and enhance their creative talents.
• Preserve and promote the traditional wisdom, knowledge and skills, there by helping to promote & project the local language, arts, craft, culture & tradition.
• Bring within the easy reach of the rural population, topical information in the areas of Agriculture, Social welfare, Education, Health and Environment.
• Help create rural networks for the rural cottage and village industry

The Government of India has decided to grant licenses for community radio broadcasting to well-established and recognized educational institutions/organizations such as universities, institutes of managements, institutes of Engineering and Technology and residential schools.

The license for the community radio services in India will be given for a period of three years and this will operate on non-commercial basis for the largest benefit of the community. Therefore no license fee will be charged except the minimum spectrum usage fee as determined by the Wireless Planning Coordinator (WPC) for such purposes.

The license will be granted for the FM transmitters with the power of 59 Watts or Less, with a limited range capacity of about 5-10 km radius.

The license shall follow the programme code of All India Radio and other terms and conditions given in the guidelines issued for this purpose.

Educational institutions/organizations can set up the radio station on their Own, The ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Human Resources Development and Wireless Planning and Co-ordination (WPC), Ministry of Communication has to be consulted prior to grant of license.