I&B min not to implement order on community radio stations

The Information and Broadcasting ministry today said it would not take any action against community radio stations that hampers their functioning and also not implement an order that asked them to submit content on a daily basis.
I&B Secretary Bimal Julka said the ministry would continue to support community radio stations and the order in which such channels had been asked to submit their content would not be implemented.
Julka said that the ministry values the work community radio stations are doing and no coercive action will be taken as far as they subscribe to the AIR code.
Earlier the Ministry had ordered that the community radio stations that broadcast anywhere between eight and 20 hours, to mail their content every day. The ministry had said that the recordings should be submitted in MP3 format.

There had been much consternation among community radio operators following the order.
Sources, however, said that as per the existing norms, community radio stations have to keep a record of their content for around 90 days, which is sufficient for the purposes of monitoring the content, if required.