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NEW
DELHI: Experts attending the E India 2007 today expressed
concern that stakeholders, or even those pondering entry into
Community Radio are too bothered about costly technology,
which should not take more than five per cent of the budget
of a project if it has to be sustainable.
The
discussion in the afternoon session on "Low Cost Solutions
to CR" saw most speakers agree that technology cannot
be a fad and that it should not just be demystified but also,
there is need to enter the field at low tech levels and gradually
upscale the operations.
"This
is a wake-up call," said N Ramakrishnan of Ideosync Media
Combine, one of the two panelists, "for too much is being
made out of technology, which is just one of the five main
components of a CRS."
As
Hemant Babu of Nomad India Network, the second panelist, said
later, the components are – in order of priority, with
the percentage share of budget allocation for each –
planning and licensing (five per cent); civil works (20 per
cent); equipment (technology 20 per cent); programming (30
per cent); personnel (20 per cent); and marketing and revenue
generation (five per cent).
Ramakrishnan
said that the obsession with technology is because of the
fact that we are all unaware of what it takes, and tend to
think that one must start off with a swank station.
"This
is because that is all that we see in films, and think that
is what it should be, which is not true," Ramakrishnan
stressed, adding that technology needs to be demystified.
Radio
technology is available at affordable prices and there are
both open and proprietory sources, and low cost should not
be seen as a compromise, according to him.
He
added that low cost also did not mean low grade programming,
for that depends on the person who is doing the programming,
Ramakrishnan held.
He
said that it is necessary to delve deep into issues like local
skills available; assess that capacity; assess training needs;
assess scale of funding, which is not necessarily the best
option for a sustainable CRS; understand weather and usage
conditions; and also assess the repair and service facilities
available locally.
"There
is no point in having a system that can be repaired only 500
or a 1,000 km away, for there are lots of partial skills available,"
Ramakrishnan said.
Calling
for a community-driven CR movement, he said that one must
"think small, start small and scale up the operations
regularly, which would give the CRS a good public standing."
Giving
examples of two Uttarakhand projects, "Hevalvaani"
and "Mandakini ki Awaaz", named after the two local
rivers, he stated that when the projects started, they just
went about taping the opinions of people and doing narrow-casting
in localities and tea stalls etc.
After
a few years of going through such exercises, they are now
getting into CRS proper, he explained.
The
projects have generated community funds of five rupees per
household and is self-funded mostly, hence responsible to
the audience.
Babu
later also spoke of re-appropriating technologies that touches
the lives of the common people and stressed that if the cost
of technology is more than 25 per cent of the budget allocation
of a CRS, it would not be sustainable.
He
said that there are good designs available to suit Indian
conditions for running 1 W to 150 W CRSs, adding that by September,
the certification to match International Telecommunication
Union standards should become possible.
One
of the key problem areas for Indian CRSs is power supply,
Babu said, and emphasised that CRSs, especially in power glut
areas ought to go for solar power systems.
Babu,
however, pointed out to the irrational pricing of some of
the key components of CRS technology, which the foreign companies
manufacturing charge unreasonable prices if they are bought
in India, like the MRF 123, or BLF 147.
Though
Babu, in his discussion, put the technology cost for setting
up a 100 W system at around two lakh rupees, in discussions
on the sidelines of the conference, he conceded that there
is no need for communities to go for such higher range of
output and that at lower ends, the cost would be much less.
He
and a few others also discussed the possibility of removing
computers – rather, making them rural-folk friendly,
by going for adding on touch screens on to computer monitors,
which could cost as less as Rs 6,000 nowadays.
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