NEW DELHI: The Empowered Group of Ministers have given the green signal to the auction of the 839 FM Radio Channels in Phase III.

It is learnt that the eGoM unanimously decided to refer some issues relating to fees to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) which will be asked to give its responses according to a fixed time frame.

Information and Broadcasting Ministry Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said that it was expected that the Government will earn revenue of Rs 15 billion from the auction. The auctions for all the channels are expected to be completed within one year, he said.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Budget speech for 2013-14 had committed that the auction would commence in 2013-14.

He had said the government proposes to expand private FM radio services to 294 more cities.

He said after the auction, all cities having a population of more than 100,000 will be covered by private FM radio services.

MUMBAI: Infocom, an annual conference and exhibition that aims to bring together business and technology on the same platform, has partnered with Assocham to launch media and entertainment venture the Infocom?Assocham Mets Forum 2013.

The Mets Forum, the third edition of the annual Infocom conference, will kick-start at the Indian capital and will be inaugurated by Information and Broadcasting (I&B) minister Manish Tewari in the presence of I&B secretary Uday Kumar Varma and ABP Group MD & CEO and Infocom chairman D. D. Purkayastha.

The two-day conference, exhibition and the EME Awards will be held on 8 and 9 March at the Indian Habitat Centre (Silver Oak I & II), New Delhi and will provide a unique combination of thought provoking discussions at the conference along with live experience at the exhibition.

One of the key objectives of the forum is to provide a one-stop-shop for the modern day convergence unleashing the power of media and entertainment, information technology, telecom and social media.

The Excellence in Media and Entertainment (EME) Awards 2013 is aimed at recognizing excellence in the field of media and entertainment with emphasis on ?Animation and VFX?.

Nominations have been received from 28 countries including India and abroad with national and international award categories. The jury members for the EME Awards 2013 will comprise dignitaries and celebrities associated with the entertainment and media fraternity.

NEW DELHI: Community radio stations can re-transmit All India Radio?s (AIR) new bulletins.

However, the Government has once again turned down the demand for airing of local news bulletins.

Information and Broadcasting Ministry Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said: ?Even for FM which is a far more commercial venture, we have not allowed news which they can create on their own, but we have in the proposed policy said that they could perhaps use the AIR news. I am willing to offer that to you.?

Varma said it was not possible to permit creation of local news as the Ministry did not have the mechanism to monitor the channels. He said creation of local news was a very sensitive issue. ?You will realise that in a country like India, where we have no mechanism to know what is going on, if some damage is done, we?ll not know for a long time.? On the other hand, he said, it could also be argued that people who ran Community Radio stations are responsible and could be trusted.

On the spectrum fee front, the Government has taken a decision to waive them for community radio stations, though the orders in this connection will be announced as soon as the Telecom Ministry completes the necessary formalities. The spectrum fee of Rs 19,000 had recently been increased to Rs 91,000 and posed a major burden on the CR stations.

?Our feedback is that the spectrum fee has been waived but there are certain procedures which are required. Those procedures are underway and soon - I really can?t make a commitment because it is not in my hands - but it is expected that the complete waiver of the spectrum fee will become a reality very very shortly,? said Varma.

NEW DELHI: The Government has said it is not ruling out carriage of news by FM radio channels based on reports from recognised news agencies.

Information and Broadcasting Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said that news on ?as is where is? basis would be permitted from All India Radio in the FM Phase III. However, this can later be relaxed to introduce news from other sources.

?We begin with AIR and then we go and start allowing more and more news... I do foresee that in next five-seven years time, the things happening the way we expect them to happen, then there is nothing stopping radio to have news,? he said.

He was responding to a question as to why the government did not allow radio channels to use news feed of recognised agencies.

Varma said that though news was not currently allowed, radio channels still provided cricket scores and often radio jockeys also commented on current events.

He indicated that monitoring the news channels was the major reason for not permitting FM channels to broadcast their own news.

Expansion of radio through FM Phase III is on the top priority of the government and it had been decided that an ascending e-auction would be conducted.

Varma said that there were issues like choosing an auctioneer, a migration fee and a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India report which suggested reducing channel spacing for radio channels had to be resolved.

The government would also pursue expansion of FM radio in border areas and interiors as this was a priority area.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) had organised a meeting of radio CEOs.

Reacting to some members of the radio industry that the industry was facing difficult times, he said this was not true and there was a consistent ten per cent CAGR growth in the sector.

Taking part in the discussions, several speakers like Indian Institute of Mass Communications Director General Sunit Tandon and Amit Khanna of Reliance Entertainment said shortage of trained manpower was a major hurdle to the growth of radio.

Khanna said that monitoring news on radio appeared to be the main concern of the government, as it was easier to monitor television news.

Tandon said that IIMC had the infrastructure to train personnel but needed industry collaboration for this purpose. He said IIMC had the mandate for training personnel for community radio, but funding was a problem where the industry could come in.

Radiowalla CEO and co-founder Anil Srivatsa said he was prepared to collaborate with institutions to train personnel in internet radio.