Sagar & Manish kumar
Post News Network
blatantly violate the
guidelines, broadcasting not only traffic updates and weather reports but also stock market reports
Bhubaneswar, March 10: Commissionerate police Monday became a party to violation of I&B ministry’s guidelines when it launched traffic updating service for citizens through private FM radio in the city.
“FM radios have been broadcasting traffic updates in several cities of the country for a long time. We started it considering it as a public service as we are not making any revenue out of it,” commissioner of police RP Sharma told OrissaPost.
The commissioner said he would check with his colleagues and stop broadcast of anything that might go against the law.
However, I&B ministry director (broadcasting wing, FM) CS Kaushik said this was against the law. “Airing of traffic updates and weather reports on radio is against the law presently. The phase II FM radio policy (in force since 2005) restricts broadcast of any news content, including traffic updates,” he said in an exclusive interview.
The broadcast of information related to traffic and weather has been included in the phase III FM radio policy, which is yet to come in force. The proposal for e-auction for the third phase was cleared by the Centre earlier this year.
Meanwhile, FM operators in the city blatantly violate the guidelines, broadcasting not only traffic updates and weather reports but also stock market reports. “We air everything: traffic updates, weather and stock market reports. Many people listen to the radio only to get updates on stock or traffic,” said RJ Guru of Big FM 92.7.
“There were a set of do’s and don’ts. As far as I remember broadcast of only politics and crime is prohibited,” he said.
Broadcast of stock market reports is prohibited even under FM radio phase III guidelines.
“If we broadcast traffic news on our own, we would be committing a crime. However, if we do it with the help of commissionerate police, it’s within the law. We can’t say there is a protest happening somewhere, but on getting information from cops, we can say a particular road is jammed and commuters should use other roads,” said Manas Pattnaik, station head of Red FM.
Pattnaik asserted that he was not violating any law by broadcasting traffic updates and weather report. The two radio operators also alleged that many other stations are also giving news updates.
The ambiguity over ‘public service’ content in Phase II guideline, which mandates radio stations to give a fixed time-slot to public service programmes, gives leeway to radio stations to broadcast news.
