Touted as the countrys first community radio and cleared rather hurriedly in February 2004, barely three months before the Lok Sabha election, Anna Radio was to be the BJPs centrepiece in its high decibel India Shining campaign in Tamil Nadu.
However, with just two hours of content and no blueprint to conquer the airwaves, it was hardly the dramatic poll trigger the BJP had envisaged. But what was seen as a political decision then turned out to be a milestone in the area of community outreach.
Its been a challenging 18 months (since Anna FMs launch). But I think we have passed the test, says Dr R Sreedher, Director of Anna Universitys Educational Multimedia Research Centre (EMRC) and the man behind the rather low profile achievement.
Anna Radio at 90.4 Mhz (Megahertz) has now stockpiled 1800 hours of content. According to Sreedher it reflects the voice of the community, recorded as it was by innocent (with no commercial motive) producers. The programmes are indigenously produced. Theres no news, no advertisements, no film-based programmes and no programmes violating Intellectual Property Rights or broadcast guidelines.
The reach of the 50-watt transmitter is in the radius of eight to 10 km and 10 hours of programmes are broadcast every day from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The focus areas are education, health, environment, womens issues and community development. Every Saturday evening there are live phone-ins from two slum colonies (Kannigapuram and Kotturpuram), about 2 km from the University, to discuss day-to-day civic or social problems including drinking water shortage, bad roads and transport. The phone-ins are a great source of excitement for the women in Kannigapuram who wait eagerly for Saturday evenings.
The samuthaya nerkanal (social interview) programmes where slum dwellers are taught to engage their time creating art from scrap and made to talk about that empowering experience has been particularly popular. So too the Sakthi Arivayadi (Women, Know Your Power) programme aimed at improving quality of life.
Faculty and students from the Anna Universitys Media Science department chip in as interrogators, anchors, editors and producers. In fact, it is a bustling radio station, mobilising communities in a big way.
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) was given the task of coordinating the licensing process.Sreedher was the first, along with IIT Kanpur, to apply for a radio license on behalf of Anna University.
Within six months, Commonwealth of Learning and UNESCO granted recognition to Anna Radio as a training centre for station managers. Soon after, the station trained 60 participants from 11 countries.
Several universities have since followed EMRCs footstepsVVITs Vasundhara Vahini at Baramati in Maharashtra, Delhi-based campus station, Radio Jamia, Open Knowledge Network of M S Swaminathan Foundation and a host of other campuses across the country.
Anna Radio hopes to make a mark following the principle that the true spirit of a community radio is to make programmes with the cheapest resources available and getting a community to decide on the content. We dont want TRPs (Television Rating Points) and RRPs (Radio Rating Points). If we can transform the life of 600 women, then we have achieved a lot.
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