The Hindu : Karnataka News : UAS to launch community radio in Bidar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 15, 2007
ePaper

Karnataka

Karnataka

UAS to launch community radio in Bidar

Rishikesh Bahadur Desai

The FM station will have a range of about 25 km

It will broadcast programmes on agriculture and environment
Radio station is estimated to cost Rs. 30 lakh

Bidar: The University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharwad, will start a community radio station to help farmers in Bidar district.

The Frequency Modulation (FM) Radio Station will be based at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra on Janaswada Road in Bidar taluk. It will have a range of 15 to 25 kilometres and can be heard in most parts of Bidar taluk, and some parts of Aurad and Bhalki taluks. The station will broadcast programmes on agriculture, environment, health, education, community development, rural development and other sectors.

“The radio station on the university’s Dharwad campus is catering to farmers of the surrounding villages. We wanted to help Bidar farmers in a similar way. Hence, the decision to start the service,” said Agriculture Minister and Bidar MLA Bandeppa Kashempur. The radio station is estimated to cost Rs. 30 lakh.

“We have requested the Union Government to fund the project under the Agriculture Technology Management Agency’s schemes. The State Government is willing to provide additional financial assistance, if needed,” the Minister said. The university’s Directorate of Extension had applied to the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for permission, he said.

The Farmers’ Information Centre of the university runs the Dharwad station. The centre works under the Directorate of Extension and contains a soil scientist, a pest and insect expert, crop scientists and weather forecasters. It broadcasts a two-hour programme every day. There would not be advertisements or entertainment programmes. The programmes were in Kannada and sometimes in English and Hindi. The content is mostly sourced from the university, said Ravi Deshmukh, senior scientist of the KVK.

“In a community radio programme, we can give time-bound and location-specific advice to farmers,” said Shankar Rao Kulkarni, agriculture scientist at the Agriculture Research Station in Bidar.

A community radio could be the best friend of a farmer when it came to pest and insect control, said C.R. Konda, senior scientist at the ARS.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka