MUMBAI: Realising the positive role that community radio stations(CRS) play in reaching out to local communities, the Shivaji University in Kolhapur is all set to start its own CRS.

There are around 203 operational community radio stations in India.

The University will not only reach listeners within the campus, but also the neighbouring localities.

“Education institutions are going with the technology. We conduct many lectures but sometimes it does not reach out to all the students of the university. Thus we have planned to broadcast our lectures and teachings so that not only the students but also the one’s who couldn’t continue their education and also are unemployed, can take the benefits from the community radio station,” said University Vice-chancellor D T Shirke.

The station is at a very initial stage. The university expects to start operations by 2019, depending on the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s licensing procedure.

The basic objective of the university is to reach out to people until the end. “The task of a university is to reach out to the community and thus we are coming up with a community radio station,” added the captain of the radio station, Dr. Sonaje.

The university is in plans to set up two radio stations, one online and one offline. By offline radio they mean web-radio station. This will be an easy job for them as the university is partially prepared with a website, infrastructure, etc. In terms of online - the community radio station set up, it will cost them around Rs five million which will be solely funded by the university.

“We are permitted to cover the area of around 15 km. As we wish to our programs to other districts except for Kolhapur i.e. Sangli and Satara, we have planned to start web-radio. Such facilities are available in some universities and we are also in thoughts of having the same facility so that our programs can reach to an extended area“, Shirke added.

The university along with common courses of education also conducts educational programs for adults and entrepreneurs. They also have cultural events and research activities which play a major role in the university.