The Community Radio sector in India is over a decade old, it has gone through a steady transformation in this time and practitioners as well as experts are of the opinion that while the sector has evolved there are some issues that still need urgent attention. Here are excerpts from an interview where Dr  R  Sreedher, former Director, Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia and Community Media expert, brought to light some of these issues.

This is the 10th year of Community Radio in India when I started in 2004 it was very different. In terms of licensing we have come a long way. During the first registration we had applied through the State Government and even to get the GPS coordinates we had to go to the National Geo Special Data Centre at Dehradun where we had to pay Rs.10, 000 to get the data. The SACFA was through a lot of Ministries as well back then and was manual. Today we have come a long way but still a lot more has to be done.

I would also like to discuss the merits of the one window concept and also the importance of migrating to digitalisation.

People are made to get clearances from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and the Telecom Ministry. First, one has to go to the Information & Broadcasting Ministry and then go to the Telecom Ministry; it is not possible for the common man to go back and forth.
Another direction we should go towards is digitalisation. In the next ten years of CR, I think analogue radio will be taking a back seat in most of the parts of the globe and we will have digital radio instead. It is better that the next phase of licensing starts with digital radio which is going to be sustainable. Why sustainable because one transmitter can be used by three people and the cost of operation will be 30% only.

R Sreedher is a Media expert and Community Radio Practitioner