The Hindu Business Line : Stringent norms for community radio services

THE Government is taking adequate safeguards before offering community radio licences by referring all applications to the Home, Defence, Human Resources Development and External Affairs Ministries, besides the Wireless Advisor in the Telecom Ministry and Prasar Bharati.

According to the guidelines issued on Wednesday, licences would be granted to well-established educational institutions/organisations such as universities and institutes of technology/management and residential schools recognised by the Union Government or the State Governments.

The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry said the licences would be granted for FM transmitters with a power of 50 watt. Licensees would only be charged the spectrum usage fee as determined by the WPC. The I&B Ministry will not levy any other licence fee.

The licensees shall furnish a bank guarantee for Rs 50,000 to ensure timely performance of the licence agreement. If the licensee fails to commission services within the stipulated period, he would have to forfeit the amount of bank guarantee to the Government and the Government would be free to cancel the licence awarded to the licensee. The licence shall be for a period of three years and is not transferable. An applicant will not be permitted more than one licence.

The licensee is not permitted to air any advertisement or sponsored programmes.

The licensee shall provide its services on free-to-air basis. The licensee shall not use its channel/broadcast services in whole or part for commercial purposes. The licensee shall follow the Programme Code of All India Radio.

The licensee cannot broadcast any news and current affairs programmes or air election and political broadcasts. The programmes on the community radio service will focus on issues relating to education, health, environment, agriculture rural and community development. The content must be confined to social, cultural and local issues and the format, subject, presentation and language must reflect and exude the local flavour and fragrance.

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Stringent norms for community radio services