A model community radio station to learn, innovate and document best practices in Radio for social change-
Radio Nazariya, a community radio station was conceived in 2010 by DRISHTI ( non-profit based in Ahmedabad), to deal with the urban question through dialogue and information sharing. The Radio station, which went ‘On-Air’ from June 2016, has as its primary target group, lower and middle income groups. It is a known fact that most commercial FM radio stations only use the spectrum to play popular bollywood numbers and advertisements. The possibility of presenting important and usable information for the under-privileged through culturally relevant and entertaining formats is long felt. Radio Nazariya aims to be the first radio station of Ahmedabad that uses the edu-tainment model to reach out to the unreached. It is in this creative programming as well as being financially sustainable, that Radio Nazariya aspires to be the model radio station for the sector.
Radio Nazariya will have a reach of 12-15 km with its radius at the middle of the city, Khanpur. This effectively will cover almost 80% of Ahmedabad, apart from new areas like Bopal, Naroda etc. It has the license to broadcast 24 hours a day. We would attempt to reach atleast 18 hours (6AM to 12PM) as soon as possible. Radio Nazariya has got the frequency approval from the ministry and by July we should start transmission.
This being a community radio station presents the unique opportunity of using the airwaves to sensitize communities, encourage discussion and debates, and listen to problems and aspirations of various social groups who otherwise remains unrepresented in the media. Urban issues of housing, livelihood, transport, sewerage, education facilities, health systems, law and order as well as issues of human rights like violence, atrocities, etc concerning especially the poor and other citizens would be the theme for most of the audio programs.