MUMBAI: Madurai Kamaraj University will soon start a community radio service in Andipatti of Theni district in an initiative to apply technology for rural development.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Vice-Chancellor R. Karpaga Kumaravel said that the proposed service would be stationed at MK University College. It would broadcast programmes on population, health, education and social awareness for the benefit of villages within a radius of five km from Andipatti. It will be a radio service for the villagers, of the villagers and by the villagers,... the Vice-Chancellor said. Recent studies, Dr. Karpaga Kumaravel said, had revealed that community radio services were immensely popular among rural masses and the Andipatti service would be an effort to reach the unreached.

The Vice-Chancellor claimed that Madurai Kamaraj University was the only university in the country to get sanction for a Gyan Vani FM radio station and community radio service. Both the services would become operational by the middle of this year. The university had signed a memorandum of understanding with Indira Gandhi National Open University to run the Gyan Vani station for which equipment had reached the Madurai station of All India Radio. The proposed FM station would broadcast programmes for not less than six hours a day to reach listeners in a radius of 60 km. Programmes for the services would be produced by the Electronic Media Production Centre of the IGNOU and Electronic Multimedia Research Centre of the MKU.