Meet on community radio concludes in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The 3-day Community Radio Awareness workshop organised by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, along with Community Radio Association (CRA) concluded on Saturday. According to organisers, the workshop’s objective was to create awareness about setting up a community radio. NGOs, educational institutions and KVKs from south India took active part in this workshop.

Amit Dwivedy, Assistant Project Director, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, Prof Vinod Paverala, Chair, UNECSO chair for Community Media, Salil Kader, Advisor, Cultural Affairs, US Consulate General Hyderabad, N A Shah Ansari, President, CRA also graced the occasion. Abdul Samad from Radio Charminar, Zahed Farooqui from Deccan Radio and Fr. Bijo Thomas from CR Mattoli (Kearala), RSJ Thomas, Jireh Care Foundation and Ln Sheeba Rajender, St Mary’s Educational Society were also a part of the same. At the workshop, enthusiastic academicians, NGOs, institutes from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were given insight to the community radio. All the delegates were given a walkthrough of the community radio, its policy guidelines and provisions, technical requirements, and understanding of communities and listeners for the purpose of engaging them with the radio.

The main objective of the workshop was to provide detailed information on all aspects of applying for a community radio license as well as setting up a radio station. Officials from I&B Ministry, experts from operational radio stations provided special insights into policy, guidelines, the day-to-day operations and challenges and shared their gratifying experiences of engaging with this people’s medium. I&B officials provided deep insights about the Community Radio policy, application process. Its sustainability, options and government schemes were also discussed.

Prof Vinod Paverala said that, “Community radio is a horizontal communication where people talk to each other, can produce programme and raise their issuess to attract possible solutions and it will give insight to the policy-makers into the problems of the people.” Amit Dwivedi informed that “The ministry is working to increase the number of CR stations in the country through organizing CR awareness workshops in different parts of the country.”