The five decade-old news division of All India Radio's Kozhikode station, whose local flavoured news bulletins are immensely popular among radio buffs in northern Kerala, is facing the threat of closure following restructuring plans by the Centre.
According to AIR sources, the move is part of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry's organisational re-structural plans.
The local flavoured news bulletins from AIR have been an integral part of the lives of conventional radio buffs in seven districts of north Kerala and Lakshadweep for the last 50 years.
The division, which has an Assistant Director, news correspondent, two news readers and a number of casual staff, broadcasts AIR's state-wide morning news bulletin, attracting the maximum number of listeners with respect to its other programmes.
"An order relocating the current news correspondent to Doordarshan Kendra in Chennai, has already been issued. The Assistant Director, who is also the head of the news unit, is expecting the transfer order any moment," an AIR source told PTI.
Both the Assistant Director and the correspondent are Indian Information Service officials.
"If after the transfer, no fresh appointments are made here, it means the division will be closed down soon," the source who did not wish to be named, said.
The news readers of Kozhikode station would be attached to some other stations as part of the move and the casual staff may lose their jobs, the source said.
Besides the state news bulletin, a regional news bulletin in the noon and five FM news bulletins are also being broadcast by the Kozhikode division.
"The government's plan is to strengthen the capital news divisions and close down the regional ones across the country," the source said.
He further said there were allegations that the closure was to help private FM stations, for whom the BJP-led NDA government was mulling granting permission to start their own news broadcast.
Set up in the year 1966, the news division in Kozhikode AIR was envisaged to give adequate representation of news from Malabar (north Kerala) region, where there are a large number of tribal and minority pockets.
Apart from news bulletins, the division also broadcasts news-based and current affairs programmes and district-wise round ups.
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