NEW DELHI: Eleven cities in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast are to be provided with FM radio facilities even though they have a population of less than 1,00,000 and therefore do not fall within the purview of FM Phase III expansion.
Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting CM Jatua told Parliament today that this had been done for strategic reasons and to counter cross-border propaganda.
At present, FM Radio services through All India Radio is provided from 223 places across the country and its terrestrial reach is 29.18 per cent by area and 41.43 per cent by population. This includes population in rural areas.
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To augment the FM terrestrial coverage in rural areas, low power FM transmitters (100 Watt) with limited footprint are being installed at 186 small towns in the country.
The 11 places include five in J&K- Kargil, Leh, Katua, Poonch, and Bhaderwah. The places in the Northeast are Dubhari and Haflong in Assam, Jowai in Meghalaya, Lung-tei in Mizoram, Mokukchung in Nagaland, and Belonia in Tripura. Each of them have been allotted three FM channels.
Meanwhile, the Minister denied that the cost of frequency for these non-news FM transmitters was only Rs 5 million.
