Shri Arun Jaitley Minister for Finance, Corporate Affairs and Information & roadcasting said that Radio as a medium of communication had made a comeback in view of the growing popularity of FM transmission and its reach. Community Radio as a variant of the medium had provided a value addition to the narrative by addressing the information needs regionally, addressing diverse status and issues and capturing the language, culture and social practices. Shri Arun Jaitley stated this while delivering his address at the inaugural session of the 6th National Community Radio Sammelan .
Elaborating further, the Minister said the scope for expansion in the sector was vast in view of the communication needs at the regional level. It had the power to connect with people by exchanging experiences and content of programs. As a consequence, this provided the bandwidth for effective programming to grow on a sustainable basis. Shri Jaitley said that the government would facilitate the medium through policies which would spur the growth in the total number of operational community radio stations in the future. The Minister lauded the efforts of the stations which focussed on sustained campaigns on critical issues related to health and education. This had led to people imbibing the spirit of the messages.
Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore said that Community Radio was an important communication medium that empowered local people and had a connect with them. It could play an important role in dissemination of information about government schemes and policies to the common man in their local language, which in many cases has not reached them through conventional mediums of communication such as Television and FM Radio.
Elaborating further, Col. Rathore said that Community Radio could help in disseminating benefits of various government initiatives such as Mudra Yojna, Fasal Bima Yojna, and Soil Health Card to the local people. He said Community Radio should inspire people by informing them about the local achievements and endeavours of people who were one amongst them. He also encouraged participation of all the concerned stakeholders to take the Community Radio Movement in the country further ahead.
Speaking on the occasion Shri Sunil Arora, Secretary Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said that Community Radio empowered people who generally found no voice in traditional media. He said that Community Radio provided empowering experiences to farmers, local fishermen, folk artists who shared their stories in programmes conducted by the community radio stations. He said that Ministry of I&B had opened a Community Radio facilitation Centre at Shastri Bhawan to streamline approval process for the CR stations. Elaborating further he mentioned that Ministry had given permissions to 439 CR stations out of which 191are already in operation. He also said that the setting of agenda for this year National Sammelan was a participative process wherein feedback from CR stations across the country was solicited.
Shri Arun Jaitley Minister for Finance, Corporate Affairs and Information & Broadcasting and Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore also felicitated the winners of the 5th National Community Radio Awards. The award for the most creative/Innovative Programme content was presented to ‘Radio Benziger’ from Kerala for their program ‘Sukrutham’. The other categories included Awards for Program with Best Theme, Community Engagement, and Promoting local culture. They also released the Community Radio Compendium and Community Radio Map which illustrated Community Radio Stations across the nation.