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indiantelevision.com Team
NEW DELHI: Community radio stations can re-transmit All India Radio?s (AIR) new bulletins.
However, the Government has once again turned down the demand for airing of local news bulletins.
Information and Broadcasting Ministry Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said: ?Even for FM which is a far more commercial venture, we have not allowed news which they can create on their own, but we have in the proposed policy said that they could perhaps use the AIR news. I am willing to offer that to you.?
Varma said it was not possible to permit creation of local news as the Ministry did not have the mechanism to monitor the channels. He said creation of local news was a very sensitive issue. ?You will realise that in a country like India, where we have no mechanism to know what is going on, if some damage is done, we?ll not know for a long time.? On the other hand, he said, it could also be argued that people who ran Community Radio stations are responsible and could be trusted.
On the spectrum fee front, the Government has taken a decision to waive them for community radio stations, though the orders in this connection will be announced as soon as the Telecom Ministry completes the necessary formalities. The spectrum fee of Rs 19,000 had recently been increased to Rs 91,000 and posed a major burden on the CR stations.
?Our feedback is that the spectrum fee has been waived but there are certain procedures which are required. Those procedures are underway and soon - I really can?t make a commitment because it is not in my hands - but it is expected that the complete waiver of the spectrum fee will become a reality very very shortly,? said Varma.
