MUMBAI: Due to 21-day lockdown issued by the Prime Minister for COVID-19, the nation is confined into their homes, the community radio station of Jadavpur University, RadioJU, has assumed significance with the citizens getting essential information, a varsity official said.

“Community RadioJU 90.8 Mhz, which had been airing songs, discussions on various contemporary issues for people living within 10 km radius of the varsity since it was launched 12 years ago, had also shifted to the digital mode a few months back, before the world was gripped by coronavirus pandemic” the JU official said.

The radio station asked listeners to inform them about the condition of poor people in their area. Set up as part of the JU Project TEQIP in collaboration with School of Media Communication and Culture, in 2008, the community radio had been operational all these years to promote community interaction and dissemination of information and provided a new platform to students, teachers and locals to showcase their creativity.

"Please share with us the situation in your locality, if you are facing any problem - whether medicine shops are open in your area. "You can either do a 5-minute audio recording which we will upload on our YouTube, Facebook page so that it can be seen by the authorities concerned for taking follow up measures. We can share the inputs about drug stores which will help a lot of people in a particular locality," he said.

"We had posted information about our students and staff distributing sanitisers among the poor of the locality and the COVID-19 awareness campaign by local police and counsellor on our Facebook page. This made people curious and there were many queries," he added. There are over 800 subscribers in the YouTube which also streams talk show with doctors who give advice on ways to stay fit and stress-free and steps to avoid coronavirus contamination.

"They conduct talks which are of help for people like us," Banerjee said. Filmmaker Kasturi Basu and some of her friends have started a new web radio station - 'Radio Quarantine Kolkata' - to help people interact and share their experience in this hour of crisis.