DIBRUGARH: Following the move by Prasar Bharati to reassign the All India Radio (AIR) in Dibrugarh from a full-fledged radio station to a relay centre, a public protest was organised in front of the radio station under the initiative of the All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) on Tuesday.
Members of various students organisation, local people and scores of artists and programmers of the radio station participated in the demonstration. Carrying placards and banners, the protesters demanded that AIR Dibrugarh should be allowed to function in its present status as a full-fledged station.
Recently, chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had moved the Union information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar over Prasar Bharati’s directives for reassigning AIR and Doordarshan Kendra (DDK) in Dibrugarh as relay centres. Sonowal had said the move would curtail their capacity to produce their own programmes and they would only broadcast or telecast programmes by AIR and DDK in Guwahati.
Commissioned on February 15, 1968, AIR Dibrugarh is the sixth largest medium wave radio station in India broadcasting in both AM (567kHz) at 529.1 metres of MW and FM (101.30 MHz) bands, airing three transmissions a day along with a 5-minute regional news bulletin at 6pm every day. The station has its studio located at Malakhubosa in Dibrugarh and the high power transmission tower located at Lepetkata near the Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited.
At the end of Tuesday’s protest, a memorandum was despatched to Javadekar and Sonowal through the deputy commissioner. The memorandum stated, “On behalf of the people of Dibrugarh and the greater students community we would like to mention that AIR Dibrugarh is one of the largest and strategically important radio stations of north east India. The radio station had always played a vital role in countering Chinese propaganda. The aerial distance between Dibrugarh and China border along Arunachal Pradesh is just about 400 km. Therefore from the national and strategic point of view the station is more important and essential to counter the Chinese cultural expansion.”