The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : ‘Gyan Vani’ FM station for Madurai

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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

‘Gyan Vani’ FM station for Madurai

Shastry V. Mallady

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to provide financial assistance of Rs.one crore

MADURAI: A ‘Gyan Vani’ Frequency Modulation Radio Station for education broadcasting has been sanctioned for Madurai by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to be implemented through the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

An agreement was signed by the officials of the IGNOU and Madurai Kamaraj University recently. The radio station will be set up on university campus.

For Tamil Nadu, two more ‘Gyan Vani’ radio stations are to be announced soon for Bharathidasan University in Tiruchi and for Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in Tirunelveli, official sources here told The Hindu on Wednesday.

“The MKU will soon be joining a league of institutions such as Anna University by getting this facility to reach the unreached,” R. Karpaga Kumaravel, Vice-Chancellor of MKU, said here.

The Ministry would provide financial assistance of Rs.1 crore for this higher education initiative, he said.

The ‘Gyan Vani’ (Madurai) project will be implemented with the help of a local steering committee consisting of eminent educationists and personalities with experience in audio-video production besides the Vice-Chancellor.

While the Ministry of Telecommunications allotted frequencies, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has agreed to offer all support in running the stations, according to the MoU documents, which were signed on behalf of I. Singaram, Registrar.

“I am personally interested in technological empowerment of students and no stone will be left unturned to reach out to rural students. Gyan Vani broadcasting will be a powerful medium for us,” Dr. Karpaga Kumaravel said.

The MoU documents signed by Madurai Kamaraj university officials were now forwarded to the Electronic Media Production Centre of the IGNOU, which is the nodal agency for clearing FM stations.

According to K. Pannerselvam, Regional Director, IGNOU, there are right now two ‘Gyan Vani’ stations in the State, one in Chennai and another in Coimbatore.

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