Punjab Post Daily Online Newspaper & Print Media
Harjap Singh Aujla
USA
In India nothing happens without the will of the high and mighty in politics. This is sadly a stark reality, especially in Punjab. After the independence of India and the consequent horrifying partition of Punjab, the newly carved East Punjab had no capital and no radio station of its own. The refugees were pouring into Amritsar and the other border stations in hundreds of thousands every day. A lot of them were separated from their next of kin during the peak of communal frenzy. Suddenly All India Radio Lahore became Radio Pakistan Lahore. It was adequately taking care of those crossing into Pakistan. Messages were broadcast repeatedly about the lost relatives over the air-waves of their powerful radio station. A refugee official of All India Radio Kartar Singh Duggal, spearheaded the campaign to set up a radio station in East Punjab. Sardar Swaran Singh, a political big-wig of the then East Punjab took the responsibility of getting the radio station set up with two medium-wave transmitters in Amritsar and Jullundur. Within a year the radio station was up and running in 1949. Later Sardar Swaran Singh got the radio station in Jullundur strengthened in 1953 and the Amritsar based transmitter was shut down.
Later on Sardar Partap Singh Kairon as the chief minister of Punjab requested the setting up of a radio station in Simla to take care of the needs of difficult to serve hill districts of Punjab and the neighboring districts. By the later years of 1950s, an auxiliary station of All India Radio started functioning in shortwave (tropical bands) frequencies in Simla. In 1964, prior to relinquishing office, Sardar Partap Singh Kairon requested the central government to set up two more radio stations in the commercial and industrial capital Amritsar and the political capital Chandigarh. By the middle of 1965, the equipment for the commercial broadcasting service reached Amritsar, but before it could be installed, full scale hostilities started with Pakistan. The government took a hurried decision to shift all the equipment and gadgetry to Jullundur, where commercial services started in 1967. Perhaps the government acted in a hurry, they disregarded the fact that in the neighboring city of Lahore, one of the most powerful radio stations of Pakistan was functioning unhindered and with immense power. Half a century later Amritsar is still devoid of a state owned radio station. Around 1966, equipment for a commercial broadcasting service reached the state capital of Chandigarh and within a couple of years All India Radio Chandigarh started functioning in Sector 19, later on it was shifted into the present sprawling complex in Sector 34.
Sardar Parkash Singh Badal wanted a radio station in Bathinda and his favorite city got it in 1990s. Similarly in the princely city of Patiala, Captain Amarinder Singh got his wish granted and his chosen city has gotten one. Both these stations have been strengthened recently.
Manish Tiwari was the Union Minister of India for Broadcasting and Information for a brief time under PM Manmohan Singh. On his orders a radio station was set up in Ludhiana within a record period of four months. It was ordered in April and commissioned in August of 2013.
An unassertive Former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is not all that lucky. He does not believe in show-offs. During his tenure, work started near Amritsar on the construction of a three hundred meter (984 foot) tall all steel space-frame towers for radio and television. This work started without a fanfare and without formally laying a foundation stone in May of 2007. Since the winter of 2007, I have been visiting the site of the tower at Gharinda on the Amritsar – Lahore Highway every year. The fabrication work has been proceeding at a very slow pace. The tower was completed sometime in 2014.
The latest I heard was that transmitting antenna elements have been installed for a twenty kilowatt FM Stereo radio transmitter at a tentative height of one hundred and twenty meters, instead of the full height of three hundred meters. I fail to understand as to why full height is not used for the comparatively light weight transmitting antenna. The structure has been standing there, undamaged, for the last three years and can continue like this for years to come. The new antenna and the tagged on transmitter have been tested too, but there is no word on its commissioning.
Also it is pertinent to mention that the other stations of All India Radio in Punjab at Jalandhar, Bathinda and Patiala are serving as full service radio stations along with full fledged studios. Ludhiana is supposed to get a studio complex too. But ironically no studio complex has been sanctioned for A.I.R Amritsar yet. The neighboring city of Lahore has a state of the art studio complex along with three medium-wave and three FM transmitters including some stand-by transmitters.
Considering the size and stature of Amritsar, this city deserves a full fledged multi-channel radio station of All India Radio, including a local channel produced in its own studio complex. Geographically this city is outside the effective FM range of all stations of All India Radio including Jalandhar. However it is within the range of the hardly ever tuned in primary medium-wave service of All India Radio Jalandhar. Punjabis love newer things. FM radio is the new fad of the Punjabis, that is why no one in Punjab listens to medium and shortwave services, which do serve the area.
Being only thirty five miles or fifty eight kilometers away from the city-centre of Lahore, Amritsar falls within the local range of Radio Pakistan Lahore in both medium-wave and FM modes of transmission. That makes it all the more important to provide a radio station of AIR to this border city. We need not only to counter Pakistan’s propaganda, but we must also be effectively heard in Pakistan’s second most populous city of ten million plus. Regarding the fear of proximity to the border, the neighboring city of Lahore is even closer to the Indian border than Amritsar is to Pakistan’s border.
I have contacted some ruling party leaders too, but sadly I have to conclude that in the absence of a political God father, the project of All India Radio Amritsar seems to have hit a permanent road block.
Harjap Singh Aujla
USA
