MUMBAI: After more than one month of suspense on the spectrum fee for community radio stations (CRS), the Wireless Planning and coordination (WPC), under the Ministry of Communications have finally issued an order saying that there will no change in the spectrum fee till September 2013.
This means that CRS will still pay Rs 19, 200 for royalty and Rs 500 license fee as per the order of 13 February. This is the continuation order.
Speaking with Radioandmusic.com, Community Radio Association vice-president NA Shah Ansari said, “For a while now there was a confusion among the community radio stations about the fee but now finally the order has come. This issue is been sorted by WPC but they have yet not issued the licenses of the CRS who have paid for renew fee. I hope they will speed up that as well so that CRS are not discouraged from starting new licenses.”
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In 2012, the government had raised the spectrum fee for community radio licenses from about Rs 19, 000 to Rs 91,000. But it had been reduced to encourage new CRS. “We try to encourage educational institutions and communities to apply for CRS but the way WPC works it has discouraged them and have lead to backward effect. The applications have reduced and there is zero per cent growth,” he added.
