MUMBAI: Community Radio Stations (CRS), that were so far being governed by the Broadcasting wing of the ministry of Information and Broadcasting, have been given to the MIB's Policy & Administration department Joint Secretary Mihir Kumar Singh.

The change was effected at the end of the tenure of Joint Secretary, Broadcasting R Jaya who had been looking after Community Radio sector for the last two years. All the decisions related to CRs will now be taken by Singh, who took additional charge of CRS in June 2016.

There are a total of 191 CR stations currently operational in the country. At the sixth national sammelan of operational CR stations in March 2016, players had pressed for resolution of several issues, including those related to funding, programming, technology as well as license renewal. Singh is believed to have his own plans for the development of the community radio sector, which has been languishing for want of government support. He is also looking at bringing in certain policy changes but, there is no clarity on the same yet, sources in the CR sector said. Singh was not available for comment.

Sanjay Murthy is currently the Joint Secretary of Broadcasting, having taken over from R Jaya in June this year.

Also read : Will the Sixth National Sammelan solve Community Radio stations' problems?