Bhubaneswar: Several community radios in the state have now been working in different innovative ways to bridge the communication gap especially in rural areas on Covid-19 to ensure connecting the suspected patients to health centres and spread awareness on the pandemic.
In the past few months, such communication setups have tried to reach out to rural masses in their respective local languages and dialects with important information regarding Covid and ways to prevent the same.
Radio Namaskar, a community radio station in Puri district focused on several aspects of Covid-19 ranging from identification, treatment and myth busting with the help of doctors, government officials and health workers to ensure the rural masses get authentic information on Covid.
NA Ansari, Chairman of Radio Namaskar, Saturday said that besides the normal broadcasting they also launched a mobile van with recorded audio messages which would tour to around 1000 villages in the district to raise awareness on the issue.
Several other community radio stations said that they are trying different ways to reach out to people with better information. Many of these areas, he claimed, are not covered by TV sets or large newspapers.
“There are many misconceptions on Covid and its treatment besides rumours on vaccination. Though our specialised programmes are meant for the local population, we have tried to bust several myths related to Covid and make the local communities more informed,” said Pradeep Dutta, Director, Radio Kissan, Balipatna.
“One of the best parts of the communication approach from our radio stations is the use of local languages and dialects, which can be understood even by a person who is not so literate. In our region which includes hilly and remote areas, many speak Kosali dialect. So we broadcast in the dialect often so that our information goes well into the local masses,” said Biswajit Padhi, Station CEO, Radio Swayamshakti at Khariar.
Community radios are low power radio broadcasting systems where the broadcasting is done for a very small region upto 30-50kms. These are meant to empower the local community with local information and are envisioned to be run by the local community without the target of earning high profits from the system.
These stations are granted license by the Union government for educational institutions, Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), charitable organisations and others.
PNN