The Future of Community Radio in India:

Some Observations

By
Shalini Raghaviah
Creative Head, Firebird Media
202, Alpine Place, X Block, Bldg no 105,
1st Main,10th Cross, SHeshadripuram
Palace Guttahalli, Bangalore 560020
shaliniraghaviah@gmail.com
09449826533
and
Binod C.Agrawal
TALEEM Research Foundation
City Plaza, Sterling City,
Bopal
Ahmedabad 380 058, India
Phone : 91- 02717-231007 TeleFax : 91-02717-231486
e-mail : binodcagrawal@gmail.com
taleemad1@sancharnet.in
May, 2010

Paper to be presented in 19th AMIC Annual Conference to be held at the Singapore,

June 21-23, 2010.

The Future of Community Radio in India: Some Observations

By
Shalini Raghaviah and Binod C.Agrawal
Introduction
In post colonial India, declaration of air wave as public property has place of eminence as green
revolution in agriculture. In most democracies of the world, airwaves in one form or other are
within the public domain and symbolize freedom of speech. In free India, it has taken more than
half a century to give credence to the true freedom of speech and expression through community
radio. Community radio a highly decentralised and participatory medium of communication
continued to be limited in its reach and access to the citizens of world largest democracy - India.
It is therefore, important to gaze through crystal ball of community radio in India to predict the
future. The same will be done with the existing data base and in the light of the current policies
and State political will to promote community radio.
Aim
The paper aims to examine the socio-political and economic forces that have lead to changes in
the current policy that forced the Government of India to announce for the issuance of
community radio licenses in the country. In doing so, attempts also will be made to evaluate
ground realities within Government of India. Factors responsible for slow growth of the
community radio will be discussed along with suggestions for enhancing the use of community
radio in India.

Changing Scenario
In most of the democratic countries Media policies and broadcasting systems are undergoing
changes in response to the demand to accommodate voices of the marginalised and to create
spaces for the agenda of disadvantaged communities. (Pavarala and Malik 2007: 243)Looking
back, it can be noted that broadcasting in India, for nearly eighty years since its inception, has
been dominated by hierarchical and paternalistic public broadcasting BBC model. Now
broadcasting has adopted profit-oriented commercial model. (Pavarala and Malik 2007: 243).
The free Government of India derived exclusive rights over radio and later television
broadcasting from the colonial Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. In independent India, radio was

professed to be used for development, where as in the colonial period radio was meant for
political control.
Over a century later, in 1995, The Indian Telegraph Act 1885 was questioned by the Supreme
Court of India which gave a historic judgement in February 1995, stating that airwaves constitute
public property and must be utilised for advancing public good. It took seven years for the
Government of India to laid out policy guidelines for community radio in 2005 when it approved
a

policy

for

grant

of

licenses

for

setting

up

community

radio

stations.

(www.becil.net/POLICY%20GUIDELINES.pdf)

In November 2006, the Cabinet finally gave its seal of approval to the community radio policy.
In 2007, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Government of India announced that in the
next few years, 4000 community radio stations will have sprung up under the new enabling
community radio policy. Pavrala and Malik (2007: 245) pointed out that the groups advocating
community radio as part of the movement for an alternative public communication space can
only hope that the approval of the community radio policy in November 2006 would unleash the
potential of radio for achieving participatory development goals to represent the priorities of the
most vulnerable sections of society.
Community radio as viewed is owned and operated by a community or members of a
communitycommunity radio is characterized by access, public participation in production and
decision-making, and by non-profit listener friendly economics. The management of the station
is in the hands of those who use and listen to it (VOICES-UNDP 2004:2) Community Radio in
India in its brief history has come a long way, since the first campus radio station began its
operations in 2004. By November 30, 2008, there were 38 community radio stations, in which
two were run by non-government organisations (NGOs) and the remaining 36 by educational
institutions. Within two years the numbers of community radio has doubled and are in various
stages of being operational.
(http://portal.unesco.org/ci/ev.php_URL_ID=24250&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=
201.html).

Under (2006); community radio policy, community radio ownership and scope in India any notfor-profit 'legal entity' can apply for license. Funding from Government of India is not available
for such stations, and there are stringent restrictions on fundraising from other sources. License
conditions implicitly favour well-funded stations as against inexpensive low power operations.
The community radio license entitles a 100 watt (ERP) radio station, with a coverage area of
approximately 12 kilometers radius. A maximum antenna height of 30 meters is allowed.
Community radio stations are expected to produce at least 50% of their programmes locally, as
far as possible in the local language or dialect. The stress is on developmental programming,
though there is no explicit ban on entertainment. News programmes are banned on community
radio in India.
Recently Government of India clarified that certain categories of news would be permitted on
radio, including sports news and commentaries, information on traffic and weather conditions,
coverage of cultural events and festivals, information on academic events, public announcements
pertaining to utilities like electricity and water supply, disaster warnings and health alerts. Five
minutes of advertising per hour is allowed on community radio. Sponsored programs are not
allowed except when the program is sponsored by the Centre or State Government.
Activists and community workers from across the country have banded together under the aegis
of the 'Community Radio Forum' in order to coordinate training and support for community radio
stations, as well as to continue to petition for a more proactive community radio policy. The
Community Radio Forum, India, was registered as a 'Society' and 'Trust' on 26 February 2008.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_radio)
Selected Community Radio
Some of the important community radio include Sangham Radio (Pastapur, Medak District,
Andhra Pradesh), Radio Bundelkhand (Orchha, Madhya Pradesh), Mann Deshi Tarang (Satara,
Maharashtra), Namma Dhwani (Budhikote, Karnataka), Radio Mattoli (Wayanad, Kerala),
Kalanjiam Samuga Vanoli (Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu) and Barefoot (Tilonia, Rajasthan).
Several community radios, though they do not have their own stations are operating with the
assistance of All India Radio (AIR) In reach and programme content, as reported in media they
are successfully serving their target communities.

A brief review of some of such community radio reflected that community radio have achieved
national recognition. (Pavarala and Malik 2007: 243). Four case studies of community radio
have been discussed to further elaborate some of the observations.
1. Kunjal Panchi Kutchji (Saras Crane of our Kutch), Gujarat State

A much-discussed community radio programme, the Kunjal Panchi Kutchji reinforces a longlasting partnership between a non-government womens organisation Kutch Mahila Vikas
Sangathan (Kutch Womens Development Organisation), mainstream All India Radio and a
number of non-government organisations devoted to development communication, especially
UNDP and Government of India. While the programmes are in Kutchi, the local dialect, it
focuses on the participation of women in the political process, especially village level
panchayats. Kunjal Panje Kutchji is a sponsored programme and supported by several external
and government agencies. New themes and programmes have been added over the last seven
years. Over a period of time, professional and voluntary organisations got associated with
KMVS and made significant contributions in training radio reporters and programme producers.
Kunjal Panje Kutchji has sustained for a long time due to continuous external support by national
and international agencies, including industry. There have been cases when programmes have
had to be suspended due to lack of timely support. Yet, the programme continues to be popular,
and its audiences have grown many fold. What Kunjal Panje Kutchji has actually demonstrated
is that even without actual community radio, it is possible to use mainstream radio for the
development goals of the community. Now named as Radio Ujjas ( Means light ) community
radio continue to broadcast development programmes far a large rural women listeners.

2. Namma Dhwani (Our Voices) 90.4, Karnataka State

Namma Dhwani claims to be Indias first cable community radio station and has recently started
airing as Namma Dhwani 90.4 after having broadcast licence. It is a partnership effort of the
Budhikote community, and NGOs MYRADA and VOICES. UNESCO has funded equipment
and capacity building support. VOICES is devoted to development communication and capacity
building support. All activities related to production are centred in the village of Budhikote in
Kolar, Karnataka State. Namma Dhwani started broadcasts in March 2003 . Because of the

local television network, it was possible to get the two-hours-a-day broadcast through television
as well. With the aim of expanding Namma Dhwanis reach, loudspeaker broadcast was also
started in three other villages in collaboration with local resource centres. This expansion has
become a regular income-generating activity. The listeners of community radio are illiterate
women, who otherwise have little access to information. Over the last few years, a number of
capacity building programmes have been carried out with the help of NGOs.

Nair (2007

http://ictpr.nic.in/nammadhwani/2jul.htm as referred in Agrawal 2008) reported that in

Budhikote, regular monthly feedback surveys have revealed that about 60 per cent of listeners
prefer to listen to Namma Dhwani on television, rather than radio. Namma Dhwani has been
earning revenue through local radio advertisements, and it is expected that its growing popularity
would augment its income. Therefore, overall, it could be said that Namma Dhwani is yet to
become a true community radio, though it demonstrates all characteristics of community radio.
Also, external support has played a major role in its sustenance. If would be difficult to predict
whether Namma Dhwani could survive without external support.
3. Mandakini Ki Awaaz (Voice of Mandakini), Uttarkhand State

Mandakini ke Awaaz reaches listeners of the Mandakini river valley in Uttarkhand State. Some
have referred to this as a community radio and others as a community radio movement. Since
2004, the duration and periodicity of broadcast is half hour twice a week. The Community radio
production centre known as Community Media Centre is located in Bhanaj village. Since
2006, it has a fully functional production facility built and equipped with the IPDC-UNESCO
support. As of now, Mandakini ke Awaaz has no community radio license to broadcast as
required in India. So it is partially narrow-casting or having limited broadcasting. Several
NGOs in the last three years have helped in capacity building. In more than one way, Voice of
Mandakini is an externally induced idea among the villages. Yet, it has been claimed that this
programme has helped address specific information needs of rural audience, and to some extent,
the audience feel empowered to develop ways to improve their lives through collective
knowledge and discourse (Ideosync Media Combine info@ideosyncmedia.org).

Voice of

Mandakini has been externally supported by international donors like UNESCO, and the NGOs
who support the project.

Most of the volunteers of Voice of Mandakini have expressed

apprehensions regarding sustainability.

4. Kelu Sakhi (Listen, Friend), Karnataka State

Kelu Sakhi started its broadcast in December 2006. It is a collaborative community radio
broadcast project undertaken jointly by IT for Change, Bangalore, Mahila Samakhya Karnataka
(A grassroots organisation set up by Govt. of India for womens empowerment) and
Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia/Commonwealth of Learning. Kelu Sakhi is
broadcast to educate poor and illiterate rural women through information and knowledge. It is
broadcast through a slot in the radio station, Gyan Vani, of the Karnataka State Open University.
The programme content includes womens education, health, political institutions and capacity
building/self-sufficiency which broadly fall within Mahila Samakhyas development goals.
CEMCA has played a crucial role in capacity building of Kelu Sakhi through research,
production and training. CEMCA also helped in identifying the information needs of the target
audience and in programme planning. Kelu Sakhi has provided an opportunity for rural women
to listen to their own voices on this radio broadcast, meant for education and entertainment.
Kelu Sakhi was perceived as a programme meant for Mahila Samakhya women and not for
other women of the community (Raghaviah 2007:25). Here also, the continuance of broadcast
depends upon the financial support provided by external agencies involved in capacity building,
production and broadcast.

These four community radios show varying degrees of dependency on external support. It can
also be seen that unless the participant, the listener and the broadcaster are all stakeholders in a
community radio programme, it would be difficult to sustain the programmes (VOICES-UNDP
2004:5).
Urban Community Radio
In a city, the definition of community might have its variations. Also, the issues that urban
listeners areas face are a far cry from their rural counterparts. Nevertheless, they are important in
cities where marginalised groups in their communities. Developmental messages relevant to the
citys needs have to reach the relevant interest groups in the population, which again, may not be
carried by the commercial radio stations.

5. Urban Radio Active, Bangalore, Karnataka State

Among these Community radio, Radio Active in Bangalore is a latest inclusion launched in July
2007. In keeping with the tradition of promoting the welfare and betterment of society, the Jain
Group of Institutions (JGI), a conglomerate of 35 mission driven educational institutions, has
taken the initiative to launch [a] campus community radio station. It serves the cause of progress
and development of the community at large. Common Wealth of Education Media Centre for
Asia (CEMCA) played a key role in the process. Radio Active seeks to reach out to Bangalores
masses on issues concerning health, environment, development, scientific awareness, social
issues,

etc,

in

turn

seeking

to

inform,

educate,

while

entertaining

the

public

(www.jgi.ac.in/radioactive/Aboutus.htm ). Although Radio Active has specific listeners base,

they are not defined by geographical area. Rather they are in form of interest groups such as the
Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transsexual (LGBT) community, the disabled community, people living
with HIV/AIDS, Senior Citizens and Animal Welfare Groups. Members from these groups act
as producers of programmes and also form the listening club.
Currently, it has thirteen and a half hours of transmission a week, and has appointed two radio
jockeys from the community (Chandran 2010). Radio Active has also currently launched several
sponsored radio programmes for revenue generation.

These radio programmes range from

initiatives in solid waste management, management of street dogs, and several others. Another
interesting initiative by Radio Active is the acquisition of JAWS software to make the radio
station disabled-friendly, enabling members of the disabled community too to produce
programmes and work at the radio station.

Slow Growth of the Community Radio Sector

By and large, the obstacles to expanding access to communication technologies for marginalised
groups lay in a lack of political will in policy that fails to recognise the importance of
communication in political, economic and social development.The most important factors for
slow growth of the community radio. It also needs to be recognised that community radio by
itself is neither an end nor an independent means to reach the marginalised audience for
achieving social development. It has to be coordinated with ground level initiatives and has to

be perceived as an additional arm for social communication and capacity building programmes
(VOICES-UNDP 2004:3).

Financial considerations may be one major reason why the growth of this sector has been slow.
License conditions also implicitly favour well-funded stations as against inexpensive low power
operations, many of which ran well on shoe string budgets before the imposition of any
community radio policy.

Although five minutes of advertising per hour is allowed, these

revenues appear to be inadequate. Considering that most of such community radios are expected
to cater to the poorer rural populations, paying a subscription for earning revenue is still far
fetched. This may be one reason why reliance on external support is even more of an issue as
compared to stations that cater to the well-heeled sections of the population. Another factor that
comes to light is that community radio does require a fair deal of technical and programming
expertise, despite technology becoming simplified to a great extent. For this reason, the reliance
on external support continues to be high. Therefore, transfer of programming expertise and
technical know-how needs to be done in a timely and regulated manner.

For many communities, using the medium of community radio may have great potential to share
developmental messages. But first, there needs to be an agenda based on collective need, which
will be of benefit to the community.

Most communities are still dependent on NGOs to

coordinate and steer the entire exercise. Several other groups have applied for licenses but their
applications have been rejected on one ground or the other. In other cases, the processing time is
too long to sustain the enthusiasm of the applicant parties. This is yet another reason for slow
growth. The dependency syndrome, wherein a large section of the population still expects the
government to take the lead all along, is also another reason why growth in this sector has been
slack.

II.

Suggestions for enhancing growth in the Community Radio in India

For community radio to truly become the third tier of radio broadcasting, growth needs to be
speeded up.

This can be done through a more active process of dialogue between the

government and the potential community radio users. Aspects such as operational hassles,

technical expertise and sustainability issues can be discussed in an open forum that helps both
sides understand the others requirements. Since the sustainability issue is one of the main
aspects where many potential community radio users may face a problem, they have to explore
other means of sustenance as well. While the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting policy
clearly states that the government will offer no financial support, the dependency syndrome that
the government will support needs to be shaken off.

Regional workshops to spread awareness of community radio and encourage community groups
to set up community radio stations, was further encouraged by the Governments proposal to
follow up with at touring technical exhibit of technology options for this purpose (AMIC
2010)

Future

Community radio is a process and can not exit on social isolation. It is not simply about
producing programmes to put on air it requires preparing and creating awareness and information
of a community radio from the very beginning. . It is about developing a community by using
radio. It is important to clearly identify goals in any community radio from the very beginning
(VOICES-UNDP 2004:4). At presents it lacks so community radio future. Despite the huge gap
that exists between policy and ground level realities with respect to community radio in India, it
can be predicted that it will grow in the future. It appears to be a question of time. The
Government of India will adopt rules and potential community radio users will learn together to
utilise it to their advantage. It is important to recognise that gaps exit between policy, and its
implementation. Hence, it predicted only the slow and steady experision of community radio
and in the process several of them die out might be a more rational. It is appropriate to give civil
society the time to respond to this opportunity, so that they can appropriate the medium in a more
meaningful way, as it is meant to be.

10

Works Cited
Agrawal, Binod C.,
2008

AMIC
2010

Chandran, Pinky
2010
Nair, Seema B.
2007
Pavarala, Vinod and
Malik, Kanchan K.
2007
Raghaviah, Shalini
2007

VOICES-UNDP
2004

Paper presented in the Conference on Community Radio

held on September 29-30, 2008 at IGNOU, New Delhi. This
paper is largely drawn from Agrawals (2008) country
report on Community Media Partnering Mainstream Media
in Promoting Millennium Development Goals for AMIC,
Singapore
http://www.amic.org.sg/index.php
Journey to the Digital Land: Addressing Diverse Radio
Audiences and Markets. RADIOASIA 2010 Conference.
New Delhi: February 22-24, 2010
Manager, Training and Development, Radio Active,
Bangalore (Information received on e-mail )
Namma Dhwani- Taking the Local Route. UNESCO ICT in
the
Hands
of
the
Poor.
http://ictpr.nic.in/nammadhwani/2julhtm.
Other Voices: The Struggle for Community Radio in India.
New Delhi: Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
Mid-term Evaluation and Feedback Research- CEMCAITfC Project on Developing Community Radio Skills among
Disadvantaged Rural Women in Villages of Mysore
(unpublished report).
Community Radio in India: Step by Step. A Resource
Guide for Community Radio. Edited by Bandana
Mukhopadhyay. New Delhi: UNDP India.

http://www.amic.org.sg/index.php

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