The Mumbai University’s (MUs) FM radio channel, Must, which was launched with great fanfare in 2008, has gone off-air after its transmitter developed trouble three months ago, and getting it operational has since been stuck in red-tape. It is expected to cost ₹60,000 to repair the damaged transmitter. The radio channel had claimed a listenership between 70,000 and 1 lakh, within a five mile radius of the Kalina campus of MU.
Pankaj Athawale, coordinator of the FM Community Radio Service that aired on radio frequency 107.8 MHz, told The Hindu , “In the first week of March, the transmitter, which is around 11 years old, conked off. The entire administration of the MU has collapsed. Procedures and practices followed by the administration and accounts departments of the MU function are ad hoc and red tape is the sole cause of the current predicament. I have conveyed to the audit department officials of MU and told them that all the apparent systems in place in the university are only on paper.”
The decision to set up a radio FM channel was taken by the MU in 2006 and the channel was launched by the then president of India, Pratibha Patil on February 29, 2008. Mr. Athawale said, “The Must radio channel was ranked among the top four or five such radio channels [Madurai and Gujarat Universities having services of a comparable quality], thanks to its interactive nature and the contents aired through the medium. It involved NGOs who engaged with the students community for interactive programmes.”
“Several popular radio jockeys, including Amit Dwiwedi and Roshni Shinde [currently with FM Rainbow radio], Amit Jadhav [FM Gold radio] and Sharmeen gained their initial training on air at the Must radio channel as interns. In the last 10 years, 1,500 students took benefit from the internship programs offered by the channel.”
Mr. Athawale, who has been on contract since 2008, said, “It is the result of a collective administrative collapse at the university, no mechanism to redress departmental grievances, lack of accountability and the absence of contingency plans for a disruption like what the radio channel has faced when its transmitter failed. As an engineer and a Ham radio enthusiast, on a few occasions I, along with some well meaning technicians from the All India Radio (AIR), used to repair the antennae and other equipment whenever a malfunction occurred.”
The engineer said work at the varsity was carried out using age-old procedures, without proper documentation, and on orders passed on by clerks and accountants. “Things have come to such a pass that vendors have refused to provide technical and operational support till their long-pending dues are cleared by the MU. A year ago, we tried tendering for the transmitter, but somewhere along the MU-prescribed process, the documents got lost or buried in bureaucratic red tape. Even the large number of students living within the university campus hostels [besides the thousands located within a five-mile radius of the Kalina campus] are affected by the loss of their daily diet of relevant academic programming aired by the channel,” he said.
Right to Information activist, Anil Galgali, who unearthed the information on the radio channel said, “The fact that the transmitter is dysfunctional and not replaced as yet, despite an annual expenditure of nearly ₹12 lakh for operating the radio station over the last 11 years is indicative of the lackadaisical goings on at MU.”
Radio jockey with the All India Radio’s (AIR’s) channel, Roshni Shinde, said, “I am very disappointed to hear about this. I did my internship there as a college student who had no contacts or any background in the industry. The internship provided at the station was professional and in a very clean atmosphere which greatly helped to set up my foundation in the industry. Not only for a career in radio, the internship helped me in improving my communication skills back in 2010.”
