Community Radio –an Ideal platform to resolve Identity Crisis of each community

Resource person, Dr. Ankuran Dutta, Head of Communication and Journalism Department Gauhati University termed community radio as a very fruitful platform for resolving identity crisis existing among various communities in our country. This could be a potential tool for development in India especially the Northeastern Region of India

He gave a very good and brief presentation about community radio in South Asia and traced its growth and development giving an insight into the real development role in our human society. He said that community radio is the third tier of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. He said that community radio is by people, for the people and about the people and there must be active participation of community in the community radio system. Without community participation there is no meaning of community radio. He mentioned three important characteristics of community radio as-(i) community radio must be owned by community,(ii) participation of community is mandatory in community radio to run (iii) community radio should have a profit motive . He highlighted that the first policy on community radio was published in 2002 and its revised policy was published in 2006. At present there are 203 community radio stations in India. In India the first community radio station was established in Anna University in Chennai of Andhra Pradesh that began on the 1^st of February, 2004. At present there are around 24 states that have community radio systems and the government of India has fixed a target to establish around 4000 community radio stations in the country and this is very holistic approach for the development of the all communities in a inclusive manner. He mentioned that any reputed institution like educational institutes, Agricultural Universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendras which is regarded as a very vibrant organization and has lots of ongoing activities like the farming community under the government of India or NGO’s involved in development work can apply community radio station.

A brief highlight of the community radio in other South Asia are-

• In Bhutan Sherubtse College has a campus radio which is plays a significant role in the development of the country.
• In Sri Lanka, Mahaweli Community Radio(MCR) is the first South Asian Country to start community broadcasting in 1981.
• In Maldives there is policy going on regarding the community radio type of broadcationg.
• In Bangladesh community radio stations are NGO operated and these community radio can publish news also.
• Regarding Bangladesh, they adopted the community radio policy in 2008 and there are about 14 operational community radio stations and another 18 have been newly licensed. They run the community radio for about 12 hrs daily and cover 13 districts and 67 sub-divisions where 1000 community radio broadcasters are associated
• In Afghanistan the first private radio station was started in the year 2003 and more than 85 percent of population is covered by these radio stations.
• In Pakistan there is no community radio but there is policy for the development of community radio stations.
• In Nepal, there are around 253 community radio stations but they do not have any policy regarding community radio.

Community Radio in Assam: In Assam there are around three community radio stations namely Radio Luit, Jnan Taranga and Brahmaputra Community Radio Station. The former two are owned by Gauhati University and K K Handique State Open University respectively and the last one is owned by an NGO located in Diburgarh. Jnan Taranga was the first community radio in entire north east started in 2009.

Dr Dutta at the end summarized and defined community radio in his own language as, “Community radio is primarily a low powered FM broadcasting service owned, controlled, managed and run by a particular community with a non-profit motive for providing and sharing information ,education, entertainment which may initiate digital divide, address identity crisis, remove socio-economic hindrance, promote local culture and resolve local issues resulting in the overall development of a community.”  He opined that social sustainability is more important than financial sustainability in order to have very sustainable community radio station .

Report prepared by Hemchandra Saikia on the second session, October 26, 2017 on Refresher Course on Communication for Development organised by DEpartment of Communication and Journalism and UGC-HRDC, Gauhati University with support from UNICEF, Assam