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As India gears up to celebrate its 60th Republic Day, some people are busy giving finishing touch to the preparations but often their efforts go unrecognized.
Photo Feature: Rozy Ibrahim

To start up any proper community radio station a minimum investment of Rs 6-8 lakh is needed. This can further shoot up to Rs. 25-27 lakh depending on the quality of the transmitter. In addition the station also has to bear the everyday running cost that may range, on an average, anywhere between Rs 30,000-50,000 a month.

Having to make such massive investments, is it possible for any community radio station to survive in absence of profits?

Dr. R. Sreedher, the Director of Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMA) has a different take. “Nothing comes free of cost, not even social service. No community can run a station without churning out some profit to manage its day-to-day activities,” he says. “There must be some mechanism to generate some profits”.

His views are also echoed by G.R. Syed, In-charge of Radio Jamia. “Even if you call an MBBS doctor he demands for some money. You just can’t run a station with the help of volunteers for a long time.”

This long running demand for advertisement was also understood by the government. Earlier this year, the government allowed stations to advertise for five minutes in an hour of broadcast.

Although the final guideline is yet to be released, the major emphasis of the guideline is that advertisements should come from the local area only. Advertisement of government programmes and policies can also help great deal. But no national or international ads are allowed.

ECONOMICS OF RUNNING A STATION

Community radios were set up on a non-profit model. However an average cost of running a community radio station comes to around 50,000 rupees a month. This includes the maintenance charge, payments to the people employed, rewards to the performers etc.

And for the sake of survival of the radio stations something had to be done. But what? Dr. Sreedher presented a model before the Ministry of information and broadcasting.

“Since government has allowed advertisement for five minutes per hour, if one rupee is charged for one second any station can earn 300 rupees per hour. These charges are nothing compared to All India Radio advertising rates,” he says. “AIR charges thousand rupees per ten second during time category-I, which is between 7- 11 am and 6-9 pm. If community station go on air for let’s say 10 hours a day then the revenue generated will 3000 rupees per day. In a month it will amount to rupees 90,000. Even if any station can get advertisements only for 50% of the allowed time, they will make enough to run the station.”

He further suggested that content production from Ministry of Health, NACO, DST etc. can also form a part of the revenue model. They will even provide the infrastructure or institutional charges for using the facility.

In the case of campus radio, studios can be used for the practical classes. Students of electronic media, journalism and mass communication will get the first hand experience. This will provide the faction of the lab charges to the radio station. Another initiative, which can be taken, is to broadcast birthday greetings for the audiences that have enrolled in, explains Dr Sreedher.

Classifieds ads are another option. Stations can even go for ads like sale of cycles, scooter, tractor, animals, rentals etc. Neighbourhood shopkeepers too can be asked to advertise. This will add to the revenues exponentially.

भारत वर्ष अपना 60 वां गणतंत्र दिवस समारोह मनाने की पूरी तैयारी कर चुका है। राष्ट्रपति भवन, केन्द्रीय सचिवालय, संसद भवन और इंडिया गेट जैसी सभी महत्वपूर्ण इमारतों को बहुत ही सुंदर जगमगाती लाइटों से सजाया गया है जो इनकी सुन्दरता में चार चाँद लगा रही है।

Jamia’s Premchand Archive inaugurated an exhibition of the collection of Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi’s work and life this week. The collections in the exhibit comprise a wide range of photographs, books, letters and articles of his time.

The Director of the Prem Chand Archive, Sabiha Zaidi, said: “The archive aims at preserving the work of a legend who contributed in the national movement, social awakening and secular tradition of India. Pandit Ji wrote both in Hindi and Urdu; his writing depicts the plight of families of revolutionaries, Dalit, and communalism.”

During the exhibition, as a tribute to Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi, his grandson Dr. Apoorva Chaturvedi, TN Chaturvedi, a renowned Hindi author, and Wishwnath Tripathi, a counterpart of Pandit B. Chaturvedi, gave tribute lectures. The inauguration and the lecture were also attended by the Vice chancellor, Mushirul Hasan, lecturers and students.

Remembering the legend, Wishwnath Tripathi said Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi was a modest and determined writer who wrote what he felt. “He was man of social empathy who tried to reflect the complexities of that time in his literature.”

Taking a note on communalism, Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi had once said that it is quite possible that one can be a Hindu and an Indian too at the same time. “Epitomizing Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi argued that Gandhi “was a Gujrati, a Hindu, an Indian and a global citizen, and there was no conflict of functioning. The only problem comes when we toil to uniformity instead of unity,” Wishwnath Tripathi added.

Recalling the period of Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi, TN Chaturvedi said it was a time of simplicity, and writing used to be clear and direct. Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi was a common personality who was never wary about his attire but always serious regarding his work, Chaturvedi added. “He was not confined to one perception; he was a man of multi-dimensional writing.”

Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi was also known to be a visionary who has written ahead of his time. In his lifetime, he traveled to Fiji and Russia and met Indians living there. Touched by their plight he had written about Pravasi Bhartiya.

“In recent years we have felt the need for a Ministry of Diaspora, while he had written of this need decades ago. He was also acquainted with this subject that Gandhi Ji once said ‘if you want no about Pravasi Bhartiya you should ask Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi,” recalls Wishwnath Tripathi.

In his inaugural address the Vice Chancellor, Mushirul Hasan, said it is a matter of pride to have legendry work in our archive; the student of Jamia must be benefited by this collection.

With moist eyes the grandson of Pandit Banarasidas Chaturvedi, offered his thanks to Jamia‘s archive for the respect of the work of the literary man, and wished that students will witness this literary history.

“To make the Archive more popular among the students, we are organizing seminars in various departments and toiling hard to bring more of collection here. At present Acharaya Nishant Ketu and Padamshri Suntia Jain also agreed to contribute their work to the archive,” said Sabiha Zaidi.