New Delhi: The sixth National Sammelan of operational community Radio stations in India is being held in Delhi from 18 to 20 March.

The meet will be organized by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry
in association with OneWorld Foundation India, at Vigyan Bhawan.

Calling upon Community Radio Stations to attend the meet, Ministry Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) R Jaya said the last Sammelans have been extremely useful as they provided an opportunity to meet and learn from each other.

Three awards in each category of five categories will be presented during the Sammelan. The awards will be for thematic, community engagement, promoting local culture, most creative/innovative programme content, sustainability model.

Ministry sources told radioandmusic.com that the awards - Rs 50,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 selected by a jury to be constituted by the Ministry.

The aim was to give an opportunity to operators in all parts of the country to send entries for the Awards. The awards were instituted in 2012.

The thematic category will deal with questions like the choosing of the theme, execution, format, and local participation.

The community engagement will deal with the planning, content, production, and broadcast of the programme.

The promoting local culture award will consider promotion and preservation of local traditions, and incorporate local talent and tradition.

The award for most creative/innovative programme content will be given to encourage community radio stations to experiment/devise and use programme, production and adaption of local communication.

The purpose of the Sustainability award is to encourage CRS to adopt innovative models to generate revenue for self-sustenance. The station should have sustainability on four different counts: content, human resources; technical and financial.

In a note on the Ministry website, she said that only one person per organization would be allowed to take part as the travel is being reimbursed by the Ministry.

Translators will be provided at the Sammelan venue and there is no need for organizations to send an extra participant to facilitate translations. However, an exception to this will be made only for physically challenged participants.

It would be mandatory for participants to attend for three days.