NEW DELHI: Around 600 community radio stations will be set up across the country in the 12th Five Year Plan under the Rs 100 crore scheme set aside for 'Supporting Community Radio Movement in India'.

The Government feels this major initiative of the new government will strengthen the link with the population living in rural and marginalised areas.

Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Prakash Javadekar in a press meet to mark 100 days of the new government said the Government is studying the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on migration of FM Radio Broadcasters from Phase-II to Phase-III.

The Minister talked of initiatives taken in different sectors aimed at enhancing the outreach of policies and programmes across platforms. Some of the initiatives undertaken have been innovative involving people's participation, enhancing government's presence on the social media platforms and strengthening communication at the grassroots.

He said Rs 100 crore had been allocated to Kisan Channel, which will disseminate real time information to the farmers regarding new farming techniques, water conservation, organic farming etc.

In order to facilitate Ministries/Departments in registering their presence on Social media the Ministry had organised a half day training workshop on 11 July.

In order to ensure people's participation in Government Advertising through Crowd-Sourcing of Advertisements, the government is asking people to design advertisement for important events. The Independence Day advertisement was designed on these lines and DAVP has invited suggestions for the proposed advertisement to be brought out on 5 September to observe 'Teachers Day'.

For Independence Day, the advertisements were crowd sourced for the first time and Independence Day coverage was extended to all Media platforms. Similarly, a series of Press Conference was held to highlight the initiatives of the Government and the same approach is being adopted to ensure information dissemination across all platforms.