City residents for high power radio station to be made functional

AMRITSAR: With Union Finance and Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley to visit Amritsar tomorrow, city residents demand his intervention in starting the high-power radio station installed near the International Border (IB) with Pakistan at Gharinda village (Amritsar).

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 18

With Union Finance and Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley to visit Amritsar tomorrow, city residents demand his intervention in starting the high-power radio station installed near the International Border (IB) with Pakistan at Gharinda village (Amritsar).

Work on the installation of the radio station was started in 2007, but it is yet to become operational. A vigilant citizen, Harjap Singh Aujla, said Jaitley’s visit must be utilised to remind him about the long delay in the operationalisation of the All India Radio here.

He added that part of the equipment was already installed at the transmitter site at Gharinda and the Prasar Bharati authorities and All India Radio just need a signal from him to go ahead and commission the radio station.

The tower of the Amritsar radio station with about 70-80 miles (110-130 km) coverage area was installed with expectations to counter Lahore radio, which has a deep penetration in the Indian territory along the IB. To balance this, the Amritsar radio station must be commissioned at the earliest because broadcasting from this radio station would cover Sialkot and Gujranwala along with Lahore in Pakistan.

Digital Terrestrial Transmitters are to be fixed here, so broadcasting from this radio station will be easily available in Pakistan.

It is learn that about Rs 20 crore has been spent on building and infrastructure. Notably, the high-power radio station was conceptualized and planned by former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in 2007 along with radio stations at Raebareli and Amethi.

Work on the construction of All India Radio stations in Rae Bareli and Amethi had started much later, but both these places received full-fledged radio stations, including studio facilities by January 2014.

Another resident, Kulwant Singh Ankhi, said, Rae Bareli and Amethi, being represented by high-profile leaders like Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, attracted much importance. On the other hand, there was nobody to push the case for the holy city. Hence, All India Radio in Amritsar is still a distant dream.