With the collapse of the 122-metre tower of the All India Radio’s (AIR) Thiruvananthapuram station at Manvila, in the heavy rain on Friday, the AIR is broadcasting news on FM channel, a long-pending demand put on hold due to regulatory mechanism.
As a temporary arrangement, the station is broadcasting news through Ananthapuri FM but other programmes will remain suspended till a new tower is put in place. With the reach of FM limited to a few pockets, a large number of listeners of AIR will have to a wait for at least a week to listen to their favourite programmes, including news.
It is for the first time that broadcast of AIR came to a complete halt after the transmission tower was built in 1973.
According to Station Director, AIR, Thiruvananthapuram, R.C. Gopal radio listeners at Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Kanyakumari will have access to news on the FM channel.
“Engineers from Chennai have already reached here and they are looking into all aspects of restoration. It will be restored in a week,” he said.
The collapse of the tower will not cause any disruption in other parts of the State as a 200-kw tower installed in Alappuzha powers broadcast in other districts, he added.
N. Rajendran, deputy director, AIR, said the tower had been damaged beyond repair and a new tower would be brought from Chennai.
“The 60-metre tower with 20-kw transmission power will be installed within a week. We have already started the process of bringing the new tower from Chennai,” he said. The installation of the tower and machinery would cost around Rs.5 crore.
The reason for the collapse, he said could be the climatic condition, including salt corrosion. “It is rare that such strong towers get uprooted in the impact of winds. There are other AIR towers as old as the one which collapsed. It could have been structurally weak. So there is no issue of maintenance here,” he said.
Programmes suspended for at least a week;
news broadcast on
FM channel
