BANGALORE: Bangalore based Shree Ramana Mahrishi Academy of the Blind has launched a first of its kind community radio station in Asia yesterday. The Ramana-Voices FM 90.4 is the station that will be available initially over a radius of six to seven kilometers of the academy.

The shows will begin broadcast every day at 8.00 am and aired in a loop. The academy is in the process of empanelling RJs, and around 50 per cent of these will be visually impaired people, according to the Commonwealth Educational Media Center for Asia director Dr Sreedhar, while speaking with www.radioandmusic.com.

"We already have a couple of visually challenged students who have volunteered to play RJs," informed Sreedhar, who launched the site on 5 October.

The station will not limit its activities to the physically challenged alone, but will serve the community and the neighborhood as a whole, revealed Dr Sredhar.

As reported earlier, Bangalore already has a community radio station that was launched by The Jain Group of Institutions (JGI) Radio Active 107.8. Another community radio station by Narayana Hrudayalaya (a cardiac hospital) is likely to be launched soon in the city according to industry sources.

Dehradun's National Institute for the Visually Handicapped has been granted a license to start a community radio station in that city, but has yet to do so, according to Dr Sreedhar.