From rxpgnews.com
Community radio set to unleash people's own media
By Mohammed Shafeeq, Indo-Asian News Service,
Nov 20, 2006 - 4:38:27 PM
Zaheerabad (Andhra Pradesh), Nov 20 (IANS) General Narsamma has passed only Class 10 and has no technical background, but has mastered the technique of operating a radio station.
Sitting before the 16-channel mixer in the control room of a radio station in Machnoor village near here, she expertly moves the knob on the equipment to regulate the sound of folk songs being sung by a group of women in the studio. The singers are not professionals either - the women are from the same village and neighbouring areas.
Assisted by two more Dalit women, Narsamma has been operating the radio station set up by the NGO Deccan Development Society (DDS) in the village, about 100 km from Hyderabad and about four km from this town in Medak district.
They waited for a government licence to launch their own radio station, while they played their recordings at community meetings.
After waiting for nearly a decade, the village is all set to start broadcasting from what could be arguably India's first full-fledged community radio station.
Following the union cabinet's green signal to the draft policy on community radio last week, DDS hopes to get the license and formally launch the broadcast in a month or two.
The radio station, set up with a funding of Rs.2.2 million from UNESCO in 1998 and owned and run by a trust comprising Dalit women of Machnoor and neighbouring villages, is ready to demonstrate the potential of community radio.
The facility is equipped with its own studio, edit suite, control room, tower and a transmitter.
With a 50-watt transmitter, the maximum capacity allowed under the policy, the radio station will be able to broadcast its programmes to 75 villages in a radius of 20 km. To start with, it will broadcast an hour-long programme on alternate days.
While some NGOs like Kutch Mahila Vikas in Gujarat started their community radios, they are buying airtime from the state-owned All India Radio to broadcast their programmes and do not have their own radio station - allowed only now under the new policy.
'The community radio policy will bring about democratisation of India's airwaves. It will bring authentic people's voices on to the media,' said DDS director P.V. Satheesh.
'It provides a powerful forum to articulate the concern of rural communities which are drowned in the cacophony generated by the series of mushrooming urban FMs,' he said.
'Rural people have been reduced to consumers by the mainstream media. They can now be producers of their own programmes and communicate amongst themselves their problems in their own language.'
Undaunted by the delay in getting a license, the radio station has recorded 500 hours of programmes during last seven years and played them in the meetings of sanghams or groups of women set up by DDS for various community development works.
The programmes produced here cover a variety of subjects like agriculture, health, education and community problems, presented in formats such as interviews, stories, dramas and folk songs.
The community radio station has demonstrated how it can play a vital role in preserving local language and culture. The women here want to call it 'Bichapolla radio' as it is trying to keep alive the local tradition of Bichapolla - street beggars who go around singing folk songs and telling stories while seeking alms.
Ramaiah and Yelamma were two such street singers who came down to the station to record their songs. 'We never thought that our songs will be recorded,' said Yelamma.
Vinod Pavarala, dean of the school of communications at the Central University of Hyderabad, feels that sustainability of such radio stations will not be problem.
'The production cost is low. It costs only Rs.500 to record and broadcast an hour long programme,' he said.
Pavarala, associated with the Community Radio Forum of India, a civil society movement, said: 'Given the spectrum allotted to community radios about 5000 such stations can come up all over the country.'
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