Community Radio Station Awareness Workshop

Community Radio Awareness Workshop organized by Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India association with SMART on 02-March-2020 to 04-March-2020, main agenda of this workshop is how to set up a community radio, what is the eligible criteria of the community, how to choose the community, how to get sustain on community radio what type of problems are facing, how to raise funds, subsidy, case studies with live examples, etc., and many more things are discussed their.

On this workshop different NGOs participate and they gained knowledge about community radio establishment, finding the community and facing problems of the community, solutions for that, how to design the program for the community radio, program time, cost of establishment of the radio station, basic is on which community are selected all these and live interaction with the who is running with the community radio station

On this Community Radio workshop takes lead by Ms. Archana Kapoor, Ms. Rukmini Vemaraju, Komal Sharma, and others who are already set up a radio station they share information about related community radio station.

Ms. Archana Kapoor and Ms. Rukmini Vemaraju both are explained about the purpose of the workshop and demystification of application process of community radio their policy guidelines and regulations, here they briefly explained community radio application filling, fees, etc., points are discussed in that workshop.

In 1995m first community radio station was started under Supreme Court, next in 2002 All India Radio (AIR) was started, in 2004 in Chennai Anna radio was started, afterward community radios were get permission for running their community radios in educational institutions, NGOs and other selected communities are running their community radio station under the guidelines of the Govt. of India.

Mainly here how to create the content to the community radio, running methods for sustainable radio station for the selected community, how to operate these kind of radio station and sources of information for community radio, how to design the program for these kind of radios, how to get the privilege area information related to particular community etc., all are discussed at 1^st day of the workshop. Here participants are introduced their self on this workshop here some pictures.

On 2^nd day of workshop start with the quiz on previous day session and small gameplay related who is the community radio for, by this game we can get an idea about which community we are focused on community radio, next small activity was done by the participants to find your community, to understand the community game play after that direct interaction with community radio stations.

2^nd workshop was going very interesting manner, all are sharing their paramount knowledge related community radio station starting to how run in a sustainable manner, on those participants are performed their skill like singing, they small poetry on current situations on society etc., after that field visit to nearest community radio stations are running successfully, participants asking questions how much costing, what type of support they gained from GOI, which category they started radio station on which frequency the station was running, how to identify their community and how to fight on community problems, what type of programs are designed by their community radio station, asking to set up antenna, tower setup, generator and power backup facilities,

Coming to the 3^rd day of the workshop starts with a quiz on previous day session and most interesting the thing on 3rd-day workshop is preparing for a dummy community radio station its group activity, on 2^nd day evening Archana Kapoor and Rukmini Vemaraju they formed 6 groups for performing dummy radio station based on that bases, all groups are gave their presentations, by these SMART can analyzing the participants understanding levels, after that they gave complete guideline for community radio establishment cost, what types of the permission we can take from GOI, once we can put an application on ministry of information and broadcasting it takes 3 months’ time for the complete application process, once we get all licenses we can start the community radio station within 3 months otherwise penalties are applicable, it takes 8 months’ time for total community radio station process, here we take 4 types of licenses on those 2 licenses from Ministry of Telecommunications and 2 from Information of Broad Casting GOPA and SACFA, total cost of community radio station up to 75% of the cost was return.

In Community Radio Station all programs are related up to 50% based on selected community, these community radio station was running with non-commercially. On this particular BECIL was started in 1995 established audio/ video, FM & satellite frequency.

Community Radio Station should involve the 50% selected community, initiate the audience to proactive and responsible, to promote the talents of community, how we selected the community is to conducted the base line survey, basic requirements 50watt transmitter, antenna gain 3db maximum, community radio broadcast to cover radial distance of 6-10 km, research & signal to serve small local area of community, CRS, self-stand radio, CD quality audio & man made noise, needs small power for covering relatively, recording and transmission both, visitors room with toilet etc., sufficient building with sufficient open space for tower /mast, On-Air mixture console with microphones etc., production & playback hardware and software, RF hardware, Auxiliary space facilities, power supply, arrangements, UPS, acoustic ( sound system), ventilation, studio system, transmission system Govt. policies, FM transmitter with redundancy, coaxial cable & vertically polarized antenna, self-supported transmission tower, monitoring setup, dummy load, digital telephone hybrid, on air studio, voice over booth.

Content preparation for community radio inform access raise issues of rights & social justice, empower gives voice of the marinated, educate build on empower understanding of critical issues, entertain preserve local culture & show case.

Levels of participation is feedback to mobilization to discussion to content creation to decision making, listener engagement, non-listeners are turn into passive to indirect / direct listeners, enhancing value in local problems on story based evidence participatory to Radio+, content determinates community to policy to media to experts all are inter linked, elements of a radio production spoken word, music, sound effect, silence.Program management in community radio station, CRMC as per guidelines they follow basic principles, seeks to services. Content advisory committee new content, validate content to monitoring to feedback, hours of broad cast and community helps.

Community Radio ethics and policy compliances on that technical/ financial compliance, valid WOL license, transmits power and antenna height, no relays, IT services tax registrations and FCRA supports. Community engagement and participation, AIR program and advertising code, acknowledge and credit, no copy right violation, transparency and accountability.

Guiding sources for media effects to direct principles, AIR program code / advertising code, social / cultural practices of the community, human rights, SPCA, copy rights, creativity.

Finally program clock maximum 15 minutes on that music to anchor to drama to credit to expert to VOX, on radio basic listeners are important to run sustainable community radio station. These all information and gained the knowledge about complete community radio station and their setup etc., on that workshop was very useful for who can start to run a community radio station. Some photos are attached for participates on community radio station.