RadioandMusic
| 19 Apr 2024
Mumbai and Aizawl to pay highest and lowest migration fee, respectively, for phase III migration

MUMBAI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry recently released the city-wise non-refundable one time migration fee (NOTMF) for migration from FM Phase II to Phase III for existing private FM broadcasters. Each channel in Mumbai, which falls under the ‘A’ plus category, will have to payout Rs 36.69 crore to the Ministry. And each channel from category ‘D’ city- Aizawl will have to shell out Rs 0.12 crore.

This means that from Mumbai, the Ministry will receive a total of approximately Rs 256.83 crore, considering there are seven stations- Radio City, Red FM, Fever FM, Big FM, Radio One, Radio Mirchi and Oye FM.

The second highest pay-out will come from New Delhi, which will pay Rs 33.33 crore per channel, which means that all the stations together will contribute about Rs 266.64 crore.

From Bengaluru, the Ministry will earn a sum of approximately Rs 151.20 crore, as the migration fee for one channel in they city has been determined as Rs 21.60 crore. Chandigarh will follow Bengaluru, shelling out a migration fee of Rs 19.04 per channel. However, in total, the city will not pay out as much, as it has only two private stations namely MY FM and Big FM. 

Each channel in Hyderabad will pay Rs 18 crore, meaning that city will shell out a total of Rs 72 crore.

In metro cities, although Kolkata has nine private FM stations in total, it will pay up to Rs 63 crore. The total amount that the Ministry is expected to receive from metros alone is Rs 737.67 crore.

Apart from Aizawl, there are around 19 cities that will pay less than a crore as migration fee. These include Shillong, Itanagar, Agartala, Srinagar, Sholapur, Sangli, Nanded, Muzzaffarpur, Jhansi, Guwahati, Gorakhpur, Dhule, Bilaspur, Bikaner, Bareilly, Aligarh, Akola, Ahmednagar and Ajmer.

Operators who exercised the option to migrate to FM radio Phase III will also have an option to withdraw migration within five calendar days of intimation of the NOTMF. Exercising this option will be final and binding on the operators. 

Find the complete table below:

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