MUMBAI: Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad (MNNIT) will start a community radio channel on the campus under the community development project. The entire project is expected to be completed within a year. Students, housewives, skilled and unskilled labourers to small traders operating within a periphery of 8km from the institute campus would be the target audience of the station.
Ministry of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has volunteered to provide essential know-how through a competent agency in setting up the community radio service CRS.
MNNIT director Prof A B Samaddar said that apart from imparting quality technical education the has also asked National Institutes of Technology (NITs) in the country to take up additional responsibility of serving the masses within their vicinity with the motto of churning out social engineers.
He added that to accomplish this task the institute has started completing the modalities like paper work and procuring the broadcasting licence and others from the Union ministry of information and broadcasting. A sum of Rs 20 lakh has already been allocated to the station for procuring the required equipments and necessary infrastructure like broadcasting units and gadgets.
The institute has already planned a series of educational programmes, including talks and lectures on a variety of issues like health care, agriculture, science and technology along with literacy programmes for children and adult. If the programme is successful then MNNIT would also make efforts to include private institutions in the vicinity as target audience, Prof Samaddar added.