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Radio activity check

The recent spectrum fee waiver comes as a shot in the arm for community radios in India. But a lot still needs to be done for the medium to rule the airwaves.

Policy Paralysis has long been the biggest challenge for the governments at the Centre and development its biggest casualty. From drafting rules to ensure food and education for everyone to auctioning radio waves, it is this inability of the government to take and implement decisions faster that has often negated its best intentions.The community radio (CR) movement is a case in point. Seventeen years ago, the Supreme Court made a landmark judgment that asserted the people?s role and right over airwaves and linked it to the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression under the Constitution.?Airwaves constitute public property and must be utilised for advancing public good? Airwaves, being public property, it is the duty of the State to see that airwaves are so utilized as to advance the free speech right of the citizens which is served by ensuring plurality and diversity of views, opinions and ideas,? the court had said in its ruling.This led to a shot in the arm for the CR movement in the country and after more than a decade of perusing, consulting and lobbying by community radio and media activists, the Union Cabinet finally came out with an inclusive community radio policy in 2006. Six years later, there is not much to say for the growth of community radio stations. As per the latest data available with the information and broadcasting ministry, since 2004, 1,128 applications have been received (including 104 against the 2002 guidelines that only allowed well-established educational institutions to set up radio stations), 141 community radio stations went on air (against the ministry?s stated target of 1,000 stations by February 2013), 386 letters of intent (LoI) have been issued and 187 grants of permission for agreement (GoPA) have been signed, while 265 applications are at various stages of clearance. Certainly, these numbers don?t seem to fall in line with the promise and the potential community radio as a development medium was considered to be armed with. In a country of more than 1.2 billion people?with a substantial rural population that faces the challenges of human and social development?a lack of enthusiasm from communities and social organisations can?t stand as an argument. All attention and heads then turn towards the government.

THE RED TAPE

But then, the government has problems of its own. ?To begin with, licensing is a huge challenge. It takes at least a couple of years after filing an application to get a licence, that too if one is lucky,? says Jayalakshmi Chittoor, a CR domain expert, who works closely with the Commonwealth Education Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) and the I&B ministry. ?There are seven ministries (including defence, home affairs, communications, etc) involved in the clearances. While the nodal ministry, I&B, has taken up the cause quite effectively now with many initiatives, the major hurdle comes from the wireless planning and coordination wing (WPC) of the communications and information technology ministry (MoCIT), which is responsible for allocating the frequency and the final operating licence,? Chittoor says. Dr R Sreedhar, former director, CEMCA, echoes Chittoor?s views on WPC. ?Bureaucracy is a big problem with that department. There is absolutely no transparency and hardly any accountability. Their decision-making process is extremely delayed and complicated,? he says. Licensing is a long-drawn process involving at least five major stages. Standing advisory committee on radio frequency allocations (SACFA) clearance and application for wireless operating licence (WOL) rest with the WPC. Sreedhar recalls how India?s first campus community radio, Anna FM, required no less than 33 clearances in 2004. ?What we really require is a single-window clearance mechanism. While I&B ministry?s CR wing is working in a very streamlined and transparent manner, only the opposite can be said for the WPC,? he adds. In fact, WPC has been in the news for most of this year with the annual spectrum and royalty fee paid by existing community radio stations at the centre of much debate. Earlier this year around April, the MoCIT increased the annual fee from R19,700 to as much as R91,000. The decision was heavily criticised by CR advocates, activists and representative bodies such as the Community Radio Association of India (CRAI) and Community Radio Forum (CRF). In fact, I&B secretary Uday Kumar Varma was quoted as saying that the ministry?s views were not sought before the decision was taken.

?This five-fold increase in spectrum fee would have a crippling impact on the growth of community radio stations in India and many organisations would find it impossible to meet this huge increase in royalty charges,? he reportedly wrote in his letter to telecom secretary R Chandrashekhar. Then I&B minister Ambika Soni also took up the issue with telecom minister Kapil Sibal, who declared late in September that the fee would be done away with altogether, inviting loud cheers from the CR fraternity. However, there hasn?t been any notification to this effect and CR stations are still getting letters from WCP, indicating the increased fee. Additionally, the 2G spectrum scam and SC?s judgments on the auctioning of spectrum also seem to have made WPC even more wary in issuing licences. As a result, not even a single licence for community radio stations has been issued for more than 10 months now.

?The licensing process is very tedious at the WPC. They are neither accessible nor transparent. It?s difficult for even our officials to get in touch with them. We have written to the MoCIT asking for a single-window clearance mechanism for community radio licences but they haven?t responded to that as well. They say they have a lot of other work apart from issuing CR licences. We are corresponding with them and we hope things will be better. But we really don?t know when that shall happen,? says a senior I&B official, requesting anonymity. The official further concedes that due to a complete log-jam in clearances at the MoCIT, even the I&B ministry hasn?t been able to issue its set of permissions for CR licences. ?Last year, we had issued around a hundred permissions, this year, the number is way below at just 23,? he adds.

The licensing quagmire extends further, with the government appearing wary of giving away licences for community radio stations in areas such as Kashmir, the North East and Naxal-affected areas. The inhibition stems from the concern that anti-national elements might use the medium for their propaganda and activities. According to experts, last year, as many as 12 applications were rejected from Jharkhand alone. A look at the list of operational CR stations in the country also points in this direction. Of the 141 operational stations, Jharkhand has just one, Chhattisgarh two, Jammu and Kashmir one, and Assam has just two. None of the other north-eastern states are even represented on the CR map.According to Osama Manzar, director, Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), and a member of the I&B ministry?s screening committee for CR applications, it?s a great paradox that the establishment is wary of giving a major development tool to areas that perhaps require it the most. ?You can?t run an equitable democracy without giving everyone access to media. The government should, in fact, encourage the spread of community radio as an empowerment and information medium in these areas in particular. Someone who wants to do something illegal or anti-national will not come to the government for permission; he will just start broadcasting illegally without any permission,? he says. Sajan Venniyoor, founder member and former general secretary of the CRF, agrees. ?No one with a bad intention would stand in a queue in front of Shastri Bhawan for two or three years. Why would he want to submit himself for scrutiny? The greater concern with a few ministries is to control and monitor content. That?s not the right attitude,? he says. Venniyoor adds that it?s surprising how radio as a medium is still so tightly controlled in India with news broadcasting out of bounds for anyone except the All India Radio (AIR) and that ?even a CR station covering just 10-15 km is equated with a possible threat to national security?.

THE FUNDING ISSUE

Apart from the policy side, financial sustainability is another major challenge being faced by the sector according to the stations themselves and many domain experts. ?There is a need for sustained funding for community-based radio stations. The average cost of setting up a CR station can be anywhere between R10-15 lakh. UNESCO is helping many stations with antennas or towers, but there are a lot of other expenses related to hardware and software requirements which are huge operational challenges,? says Archana Kapoor, who runs CR station Radio Mewat, and is also the treasurer of the CRAI.?There is no institutional mechanism yet to look at the funding and sustainability aspect of community radio, especially for stations run by NGOs and local communities (more than 80 out of the 141 operational CR stations are campus radio stations). Large NGOs that run stations are able to finance them, while others depend on grants, donations, project money in some cases from various government departments and ministries and, although the examples are still far and few, some run their operations with donations or subscription from the local communities,? adds Manzar.

But there are others who believe that a ?genuine? CR station that the community values can easily make ends meet. ?Sustainability will not be a huge concern where the community has the ownership of the station. There are examples like Radio Sangham which is run by the Deccan Development Society (DDS) where all members of the local community pay R5 per month,? says Venniyoor.?There are so many examples of stations in Nepal that are purely subscription-based. A large number of community contributors with a small sum of money is a much better option than a handful of donors giving large amounts. It has been our experience that if a station proves itself to be socially sustainable in the community it seeks to serve, financial sustainability automatically follows,? he adds. The I&B ministry seems to have taken cognisance of the concern. Under the 12th Plan, the ministry has proposed to set up the Community Radio Support Fund of India (CRSFI) with an initial corpus grant of R100 crore.

The ministry has also started empanelling CR stations with the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) for advertisements. Even the advertising rates have been hiked from R1 per second to R4 per second (CR stations are allowed five minutes of ads with every one hour of broadcasting).?Twenty CRs have been empanelled with the DAVP. And the consumer affairs ministry is the only ministry which has given any ads. Other ministries, too, particularly the likes of women and child development, rural development and panchayati raj, should take up advertising on community radio,? says CRAI?s Kapoor, who has been working closely with the I&B ministry.

Chittoor sums up the situation, ?There are challenges from all sides but there is also enthusiasm with regard to this medium. It?s safe to say that it is a growing movement and if a couple of major barriers are done away with, we will see a vibrant community radio presence in India.?

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First published on: 02-12-2012 at 00:29 IST
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