MUMBAI: The Haflong station of All India Radio took a major leap on 1 February 2010 with its first ever live outdoor broadcast - a running commentary of the Busu Dima fest, the biggest local festival of the region.

The ground event is being celebrated in the main public field at Haflong, known as Lal Field  Haflong, which literally means the 'White Ants Hillock', is the headquarters of the North Cachar Hills district in Assam. It also serves as a hill resort to many tourists.

The broadcast was a rare achievement for a small radio station, which has limited technical support and minimum manpower.

AIR Haflong proved this venture successful with limited human resources and modern equipments, under the guidance of M K Devburman ASD o/o DDG NER. The team includes Shyamai Chakravarty, Bornali Mitra, Bappa Dey (from the sopt), Gobin Cherty, Bimal Barman, Abhijit Kar, Swapan Das ( Technical), Nilima Das (studio operation) and Utpal Datta (Producer).V Sekoshe, DDG NER has congratulated the entire team for their work and for making the event a success.

Says Datta, "Mrinal Devburman, a veteran broadcaster and ASD of DDG Office NER Guwahati,  has initiated this project while he was in official tour to Haflong. He guided the whole team and he had to return to his place just before few hours of the programme. But he was constantly supported us over phone and guided us."