NEW DELHI: A total of eighteen proposals have been received from various states and union territories during the last three years and the current year for setting up FM radio stations across the country.

These are three from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha, one each in Karnataka, Gujarat, Nagaland, Sikkim, Lakshadweep, Kerala, Punjab, Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

While there are no approved schemes in most of these proposals, the FM transmitters in nearby areas are being commissioned with 100 watt transmitters. Meanwhile, installation of 170 additional FM transmitters has been taken up in the country including tribal areas under the schemes approved in the Eleventh Plan.

These include over eighty in the North eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur and four in Jammu and Kashmir.

Other states include Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, apart from the union territorry of Daman and Diu.