AIR’s New Delhi office to resume Urdu service from Gharinda village

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, October 20

All India Radio’s (AIR) New Delhi office will resume 8-hour Urdu service from its tower at Amritsar’s border village Gharinda to tap audience from adjoining Pakistan’s Lahore district after getting enough workforce post lockdown. The service had got disrupted due to Covid-19 and its restrictions in New Delhi.

AIR’s FM Amritsar 103.6 service used to be broadcast from FM tower at Gharinda village, close to the India Pakistan border at Attari-Wagah Joint Check Post. However people were dismayed with government for snapping 12-hour long Urdu service.

Amlam Mazumdar, Director External Services of AIR, New Delhi office, said content generation became onerous task during and after the Covid-19 pandemic induced lockdown. Unable to manage the programme with the skeletal staff, so the service was temporarily discontinued from the Amritsar station.

Harjap Singh Aujla, a veteran Engineer, said: “The Urdu service of the All India Radio, which took birth after the 1965 Indo-Pak War, has been gaining popularity since its inception more than five decades ago. It started on shortwave 25 and 31 metre bands and then spread its wings on medium-wave too.”