NEW DELHI: All India Radio earned gross revenue of about Rs 1.86 billion during the current Financial Year upto January 2017 through FM by commercials

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said that in addition to this, AIR also earns revenue through monetizing its FM infrastructure with private FM broadcasters and has earned revenue of about Rs 420 million during the current financial year up to 6 March 2017.

As far as All India Radio is concerned, 391 FM broadcasting stations are functioning in the country including 195 of 100 W FM Relay transmitters.

He said in reply to another question that the estimated cost for setting up of a typical 10 KW FM Radio Station for AIR along with 100 meter tower is about Rs.100 million.

At present, 290 Private FM radio channels are operational, the Minister told Parliament today. These include 47 in Maharashtra, 28 in Uttar Pradesh, and 22 each in Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. All other states or union territories have less than twenty channels.

The amount of revenue received by the Government from Private FM Radio is just over Rs 50.539 billion between 2006 and 28 February 2017. The income from 1999 to 2005 was just over Rs 3.535 billion.

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