NEW DELHI: Experts attending the E India 2007 today expressed concern that stakeholders, or even those pondering entry into Community Radio are too bothered about costly technology, which should not take more than five per cent of the budget of a project if it has to be sustainable.

The discussion in the afternoon session on "Low Cost Solutions to CR" saw most speakers agree that technology cannot be a fad and that it should not just be demystified but also, there is need to enter the field at low tech levels and gradually upscale the operations.

"This is a wake-up call," said N Ramakrishnan of Ideosync Media Combine, one of the two panelists, "for too much is being made out of technology, which is just one of the five main components of a CRS."

As Hemant Babu of Nomad India Network, the second panelist, said later, the components are ?“ in order of priority, with the percentage share of budget allocation for each ?“ planning and licensing (five per cent); civil works (20 per cent); equipment (technology 20 per cent); programming (30 per cent); personnel (20 per cent); and marketing and revenue generation (five per cent).

Ramakrishnan said that the obsession with technology is because of the fact that we are all unaware of what it takes, and tend to think that one must start off with a swank station.

"This is because that is all that we see in films, and think that is what it should be, which is not true," Ramakrishnan stressed, adding that technology needs to be demystified.

Radio technology is available at affordable prices and there are both open and proprietory sources, and low cost should not be seen as a compromise, according to him.

He added that low cost also did not mean low grade programming, for that depends on the person who is doing the programming, Ramakrishnan held.

He said that it is necessary to delve deep into issues like local skills available; assess that capacity; assess training needs; assess scale of funding, which is not necessarily the best option for a sustainable CRS; understand weather and usage conditions; and also assess the repair and service facilities available locally.

"There is no point in having a system that can be repaired only 500 or a 1,000 km away, for there are lots of partial skills available," Ramakrishnan said.

Calling for a community-driven CR movement, he said that one must "think small, start small and scale up the operations regularly, which would give the CRS a good public standing."

Giving examples of two Uttarakhand projects, "Hevalvaani" and "Mandakini ki Awaaz", named after the two local rivers, he stated that when the projects started, they just went about taping the opinions of people and doing narrow-casting in localities and tea stalls etc.

After a few years of going through such exercises, they are now getting into CRS proper, he explained.

The projects have generated community funds of five rupees per household and is self-funded mostly, hence responsible to the audience.

Babu later also spoke of re-appropriating technologies that touches the lives of the common people and stressed that if the cost of technology is more than 25 per cent of the budget allocation of a CRS, it would not be sustainable.

He said that there are good designs available to suit Indian conditions for running 1 W to 150 W CRSs, adding that by September, the certification to match International Telecommunication Union standards should become possible.

One of the key problem areas for Indian CRSs is power supply, Babu said, and emphasised that CRSs, especially in power glut areas ought to go for solar power systems.

Babu, however, pointed out to the irrational pricing of some of the key components of CRS technology, which the foreign companies manufacturing charge unreasonable prices if they are bought in India, like the MRF 123, or BLF 147.

Though Babu, in his discussion, put the technology cost for setting up a 100 W system at around two lakh rupees, in discussions on the sidelines of the conference, he conceded that there is no need for communities to go for such higher range of output and that at lower ends, the cost would be much less.

He and a few others also discussed the possibility of removing computers ?“ rather, making them rural-folk friendly, by going for adding on touch screens on to computer monitors, which could cost as less as Rs 6,000 nowadays.