Dear all: This is just to bring everyone up to speed on a few issues that were discussed with Ms.Zohra Chatterji, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, a few days ago. The meeting was organized by Ideosync primarily to address delays in the issue of an LoI to our partners, Aastha/Hevalvani Samudayik Radio in Uttarakhand, who have been waiting for 16 months for the issue of their LoI. However, we also used the opportunity to bring up some issues that CR applicants have been facing. Our due compliments to Ms.Chatterji and the Ministry for not only taking the time to discuss many of these issues, but for being pro-active in discussing solutions to many of these issues.
1. To start with, the Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) meetings have resumed as of the 4th of February. As many may recall, the CR policy mandates that CR applications which have not been processed or responded to by the concerned group of Ministries within 4 months of submission are referred to an IMC which then takes a decision on the applications on a case by case basis during the meetings themselves. IMC meetings have not taken place over the last 4 - 5 months, but action has now been taken to resume them on a regular basis from here on. Hevalvani's application was stuck in this process for some time now, but we have been informed that their applications - among many others - has now moved forward. Organizations who have previously been informed that their applications have been awaiting the constitution of an IMC: It maybe wise to get in touch with the CR cell to enquire about the current status of your applications. 2. The I & B Ministry is also taking steps to improve coordination with WPC and other ministries. I & B, we are now informed, will be sharing list of pending cases with other ministries to whom the applications have been forwarded. 3. We also brought up the long-standing matter of a clearcut policy decision on CR stations sharing existing tower/mast infrastructure owned by BSNL and/or other govt.agencies. Again, as many may recollect, there has been an ongoing discussion on using existing tower infrastructure by CR stations located close enough to a given tower, for which the I & B Ministry had made an official recommendation to DoT as far back as mid 2007: This would save such CRSs considerable costs in terms of owning and maintaining the tower, not to mention headaches with siting clearances from SACFA (since the tower would already have received such a clearance.) The I & B Ministry has agreed to take this matter up again with DoT, in terms of working out a structure for uniform rental/sharing costs, and towards working towards automatic siting clearance for applicants who choose to share such infrastructure once it is made available. 4. Perhaps most importantly, we took up the issue of the research report that I & B has made a mandatory part of the application process. (As regular subscribers to this list will recollect, there has been much confusion on this count: What kind of a research should it be? What should it do? What about the survey format that has been recommended on the Ministry website? How many questionnaires do we have to complete? etc.) Some key decisions were taken on this count, which will be implemented by I & B hopefully over the next few days: a. The research report submission will continue to be a mandatory part of the requirement, but will move from the application stage to the pre-GoPA stage. This will mean that NGOs who are hesitant to incur the costs involved in such a research process before they are even assured of an LoI can now be on a firmer footing. These costs can be incurred after the LoI is received. b. In its current form, the survey format on the ministry website is neither well adapted enough (it contains a number of questions clearly not relevant to a CRS), nor generic enough to be adapted to the needs of different applicant agencies and communities. Ideosync has offered to help redraft the survey format to make it more generic, so that it can become a point of reference for applicants to adapt to their needs, rather than a be-all-and-end-all format. (We hope to do this by later this month, and will circulate it for discussion on CR-India for comments.) c. The Ministry also accepts that a one-size-fits-all approach to research may not be the way to go: We pointed out that a good communication needs assessment research process could include quantitative AND qualitative (interview based and anecdotal evidence based) research processes. (Indeed, most communication researchers would agree that the qualitative part plays a far more important role in determining actual information levels, communication flow patterns and roadblocks within a community.) Therefore, the Ministry has agreed that the methodology for the research process will not be prescriptive, with the revised survey format to be posted on the Ministry website to be indicative, rather than cast in stone: It will primarily be intended as a starting point, for those who have no clue at all about how to undertake such a process. Applicants will be encouraged to work on any methodology that they choose, as long as it meets a basic set of guidelines that will provide an objective assessment of the process. Ideosync has also offered to work on a draft set of research guidelines, which we will also be circulating on CR-India as soon as it is ready. The meeting was attended by Venu Arora and N.Ramakrishnan (Ideosync Media Combine), Rajender Negi (Hevalvani Samudayik Radio, Chamba, Uttarakhand) and Sajan Venniyoor. We look forward to meeting the CR community at the CRF Open House at Orccha on the 14th February! Ramakrishnan -- Director of Projects Ideosync Media Combine 177. 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