Will the Modi government connect all border villages with the inauguration of 91 FM transmitter & overall it will boost radio connectivity in the country?
PM Modi on Friday 28 April 2023 inaugurated 91 new 100W FM transmitters spread across 18 states and two union territories, in a move that will boost FM radio connectivity in the border regions and remote districts. With these new transmitters set up in 84 districts, the coverage will further increase by about 35,000 sq km area, benefitting an additional two crore people who did not have access to the medium so far. For urban Indians this may not be a news of any consequences but remote and border areas remain connected with rest of the country using radio communication.
PM Modi says tech revolution has reshaped radio, FM
It is interesting to dig into the history of FM radio transmission in India.
Very few Indians had valve radio in their home in 1960s and those who had, it was a status symbol. They were big, bulky and used to take few minutes to boot and produce sound. This was replaced by ‘transistor’ radio’s which were smaller and thus cheaper and they became household consumer product. By 1980s, radio was replaced with record-player and later cassette players or two-in-one. Over the time cassette players or two-in-one became smaller and pocket friendly ‘walkman’. Black and white TV reached many parts of rural India and video cassette players became popular in urban areas to watch films sitting at home. By 1990s, raido was dead for all practical purpose as better alternates were available for news and entertainment.
Valve Radio of 1960s
Then came Vajpayee government in 1999. Pramod Mahajan as IT & broadcasting minister and he initiated revival of radio in the form of FM radio in 2001. This FM (Frequency Modulation) technology is better in terms of voice quality compared to previous AM (Amplitude Modulation) radio used by government controlled All India Radio (AIR). Vajpayee government decided to transparently auction FM radio frequency to new private players for various cities. This led to birth of various FM channels in various Indian cities. Today, big to medium size cities have more than dozen FM channels and they create value to every section of society.
These private FM channels has good regional content, music, quiz with awards, filmy stories, birthday wishes for well-known people, social messages, jokes, comedy, parody and mimicry, poetry and Urdu poetry like ‘sher and shairi’, traffic alerts, brief comments on current and social issues like pollution besides songs and ads. The contents are so good that people enjoyed them more than ‘sarkari’ AIR radio channels. Radio jockeys (RJ) became celebrities and earn handsome salary. FM radio’s get good ad revenue and many are successful corporate entity. Today, FM radio is available on smartphone and feature phones, car audio and other electronics devices. This way Vajpayee government created a ‘FM radio’ industry transparently out of thin air and revived the dead radio transmission.
The great part of Vajapyee government (1999-2004) is complete absence of corruption allegations even two decades after his government. Congress party created a false narrative of ‘coffin scam’ just before 2004 election. This ended political carried of defence minister George Fernandez. As per allegation, Vajpayee government purchased hundreds of coffins for Kargil war martyrs with inflated price. UPA government (2004-2014) tried probing this coffin scam but after few years, the case was closed as no evidence of coffin scam corruption could be found.
The list of congress corruption is huge. These are - Jeep scam (1948); BHU funds scam (1956); Mundhra scam (1957); Teja scam (1960); Maruti 300-acre land scam (1975 100 Cr); Kuo Oil deal (1976 13 Cr); Antulay Trust scandal (1981), Lakhubhai Pathak cheating scandal (1983); Bofors Pay-Off (1986 68 Cr); HDW Submarine Commissions (1987 32 Cr); St Kitts Forgery (1989), Airbus grounding scam (1990 200 Cr); Bengal Waqf Board (1991 1100 Cr); Solanki Exposé (1992); Harshad Mehta Securities Scam (1992 4024 Cr); Indian Bank Rip-off (1992 13000 Cr); Hawala scandal (1993 5000 Cr); Sugar Import (1994 650 Cr); ISRO Nambi Narayan spy scam (1994 fake); JMM Bribes (1995 1 Cr); Lakhubhai Pathak Paper Pulp Contract Bribery (1996); Sukhram Telcom Scam (1996); Bihar fodder scam (1996 950 Cr); Urea Deal (1996); Coffingate (1999 fake); Tehelka Sting (2001); Stock Market Scam (2001); Home Trade Scam (2002); Telgi Stamp Paper Scam (2003 1000 Cr); Oil-for-Food Scandal (2005); Cash for Query (2005); MPLADS Scam (2005); ISRO Antrix Devas scam (2005 4400 Cr); Mayawati Taj corridor scam (2006 175 Cr); Human Trafficking Forged Passport Hasan Ali Scam (2007 39120 Cr); Siachen army ration scam (2007); Cash for Votes Scam (2008); Satyam Computers scam (2008 10000 Cr); 2G spectrum scam (2008 176000 Cr notional); Madhu Koda mining scam (2009 4000 Cr); Orissa mine scam (2009 4000 Cr); Sukhna land scam (2009 300 Cr); Adarsh housing scam (2010 900 Cr); Commonwealth games scam (2010 40000 Cr) etc. UPA scams between 2010-2014 is still coming out in public domain.
Moral of the story –Vajpayee is least corrupt PM of India till date.
Picture source: Google
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