Anna University today is in a position to offer consultancy to the entire country on setting up of community radio stations as well as training personnel for it.

Anna University became the first in the country to commission the campus community radio on 1st of February, 2004. I had the unique privilege of associating myself right from the scratch.

The beginning of Anna FM
The experience I had while commissioning the station is full of excitement, even though I earlier had the privilege of associating myself with the commissioning of India’s first educational FM channel at Allahabad on 7th of November 2001.

The experience of achieving the campus community radio was much more satisfying. I was following up the progress of the legislation of the community radio movement and was also associated in a small way with at the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) as well as the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. I was also associated when the format for the simple two page application was developed. Thanks to Shri Anil Baijal, the former Additional Secretary to Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, community radio aspirants have to fill up only a simple two-page application form along with one page affidavit and bank guarantee. The rest of it has to be done by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Institutions can either send their application through the State Government or through the Human Resource Development.

The journey of the application
Anna University has applied for the community radio in the month of May, 2003, a full five months after the scheme was announced. It was fortunate to get its application forwarded and recommended by the State Government in June, 2003. Then we were told that we have to submit a bank guarantee which was not originally envisaged. After submitting the bank guarantee, our application was referred to the Home Ministry.

Home Ministry made discrete enquiries, collected some documents, verified antecedents of the people who manage the Anna University and submitted its report sometime in August, 2003. Then, the file was referred to the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Telecommunication.

The Ministry of Defence, Ministry of External Affairs had taken long time to clear and asked some clarifications. The Ministry of Telecommunication again refer red the proposal to the Defence Ministry for clearance of frequencies.

I now understand that the government has revised these guidelines and the future application from aspirants of the community radio will not be sent to External and Defence Ministries. We understood that the Ministry of Human Resource Development has cleared our proposal in the month of October, 2003 and External Affairs and