Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Updated the Community Radio info

The I&B ministry has updated the CR info on their website (www.mib.nic.in).
The status of CR licensing as on 1 May 2014 is as follows:

  1. No. of applications received so far from 2004 to 01.05.2014
  (including 104 against old guidelines) -- 1348
  2. Letters of Intent (LOI) issued -- 461
  3. Grant of Permission of Agreement (GOPA) signed -- 200
  4. Operational Community Radio Station -- 170
  5. Number of applications rejected -- 667
  6. Applications under process -- 220

Of the 461 Letters of Intent issued, the ministry has cancelled 91. *(You
can see the list of cancelled LoIs here
<http://mib.nic.in/WriteReadData/documents/LOI_CANCELLAD_1.pdf>). *Hence
the actual number of LoIs in circulation is only 370, of which 170 have
been operationalized.

These 91 LoIs were cancelled for "violation of Clause 3(b)(iv) of the
Policy Guidelines for setting up of Community Radio Stations"; viz., they
failed to apply for frequency allocation and SACFA clearance within "one
month of the issue of the Letter of Intent (LOI)". If I am not mistaken,
some of them had been sitting on their LoIs for five years or more.

*[Thanks to Ram Bhat for this info]*

Via Sajan