The Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) University has come up with its own community radio station - Voice of SOA Community 90.4 - - aimed at benefiting the people in and around the university.
It will be the fifth community radio station in the State and will function under the Information and Broadcast (I&B) Ministry. It will broadcast programmes on all seven days of the week.
“We want to take forward our social commitment and the community radio seemed a good way to do that,” said university registrar BB Pradhan. This is the first community radio station in the State that will function from an university.
The four other community radio stations are Radio Namaskar in Konark, Radio Sanskar in Jagatsinghpur, Radio Muskaan in Phulbani and Radio Kisan in Balipatna.
A community radio station technically functions inside a radius of 20 km. It is very different from the commercial FM stations and is mainly aimed at benefiting the nearby community where it is located.
SOA’s community radio will start broadcasting programmes everyday for nine hours from 9 am till 6 in the evening. At 6 pm, prayers from all religions will be broadcast.
“The programmes will be based on social issues, education, sports and nation building besides awareness,” informed Pradhan.
An interactive programme will also be broadcast where an expert will answer the questions put forward by community members. Every programme will be tailor-made to suit the requirements of the community.
Political content has been debarred as the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) did not give approval for that.
The students of the university will also be involved in the programmes broadcast. The project would cost the university around Rs 30 lakh apart from the annual license renewal fee of Rs 91,000.