Gorakhpur: The Directorate General of the All India Radio has decided to close down the Gorakhpur centre due to problem in station operation and staff management.
Following which, the centre of knowledge and entertainment for the people of the region is going to close almost after 46 years the facility was set up in Uttar Pradesh.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Gorakhpur’s All India Radio Centre’s chief Rahul Singh said, "The instructions to shut down the station have been received from the office of the Directorate General. In fact, all the machines at the All India Radio’s Gorakhpur centre have outlived their age, because of which there had been a problem in broadcasting for a long time."
"When the transmitter fully stopped responding in 2018, the broadcast was being made through the mobile transmitter. And now, the decision has been finally taken by the Directorate General office," Singh said.
"The transmission centre had a 100 kW mediumwave transmitter. Whether a new or higher capacity transmitter will be installed here but we can not say anything about in this time," he added.
The 100 kW transmitter of All India Radio’s Gorakhpur centre was established on October 2, 1972, and the broadcast started on October 6, 1974. The voice of Arun Srivastava, presenter of Lucknow Akashwani first echoed here.
It is Gorakhpur centre of All India Radio at 303.03 meters, that is, 909 kHz – was popular with the people in a very short span of time. Earlier the centre used to cover the area within a radius of about 100 km, but later on, it expanded to the whole of north India besides Nepal.
While hundreds of people were employed through the All India Radio Center, it was beneficial for the society in many ways.
Meanwhile, locals said that the closure of this centre is not appropriate from anywhere. Farmers used to get many types of information about their crops through radio related to farming. It also entertained people through song and music. It was also a reliable means of getting local and country-world news.
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