Sources said, the technical sub-committee formed in accordance with the community radio policy 2008, sent a list of 124 Government and non-government organizations after sorting out of 180 applications to the National Regulatory Committee headed by Information Secretary. This committee selected 116 organizations eligible for license and withheld 12 organizations in its meeting on Tuesday. Notably, 400 organizations drew application forms from the Ministry but only 180 submitted their applications for license. Having insufficient documents, papers and qualifications for the license, applications of those organizations have been ineligible of the consideration for license. 

The sources said, the selected list has been sent to the office of the Chief Advisor for the policy approval and he have already approved the list. After this approval, the list of the selected organizations has sent to the Home Ministry for non-objection- certificate. Then Information Ministry will start issuing license after allocating frequency for the community radio stations by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). Central Monitoring Committee headed by Director General of Bangladesh Betar will monitor the community radio activities.

Primarily it is impossible to allocate frequency for more than 5 community radio stations in the coastal districts and more than 3 in other districts. Moreover, it will take only two months to allocate frequency after completing all process; it was said in the meeting.

Information Secretary  Mr. Jamil Osman told that, we will try our best to issue license by completing the necessary process as early as possible. Initiatives will also be taken to create awareness among the mass people of this new mass media in the country. 

Research on Necessity of Community Radio in Rajshahi

Rajshahi, January 18 2008

A research programme on necessity and urgency of community radio for the sake of welfare of the grass root and marginal people started in Rajshahi.

Mass communication oriented knowledge centre CCD Bangladesh and international media organization Panos Bangladesh is jointly conducting the research. Though campaign and advocacy programmes have been going on for long time to set up community radio in Bangladesh, truly no research on its necessity was conducted earlier in the country.

After expressing positive response from the present government for setting up community radio in the country, such a research appeared urgently needed here. As a result, CCD and Panos Bangladesh recently started the research on necessity and urgency of community radio for welfare of the grass root and marginal people. Assistant Professor of Mass Communication and Journalism Department of Rajshahi University Shatil Siraj has been conducting the research as Chief Researcher. A group of potential young researchers from Youth Leadership Programme of CCD are facilitating the work.

Meanwhile, two Focus Group Discussion (FGD)s have been held with the marginal people of the Char area and Bagmara Upazila in Rajshahi district under this programme. Women of different profession and age from Char area and men of different profession and age from Bagmara took part in the FGDs. Besides, 300 people from 16 remotest areas under 8 upazila in Rajshahi district have been interviewed through using questionnaire.

The research report will be published soon. In order to accelerate the positive decision of the present government regarding setting up community radio in the country, the research report will be handed over to Chief Advisor soon.