(Story) Namaskar, Radio Bundelkhand

Namaskar, Radio Bundelkhand

It’s 5 p.m. on Tuesday, and RJs Dalchand Kushwaha and Ajayendra Singh Rajput put on their headphones, fiddle with the height of the microphone, check the computer screen for the play list of the day, and get started right away. “Radio Bundelkhand sunne wale sabhi shrota ko Dalchand aur Ajayendra ki namaskar pahunch jaave,” says Ajayendra. Then, he picks up the letters and starts reading them, while Dalchand plays the listener’s choice. This is the popular Mere Bundele Mere Geet, an on-demand programme of Bundeli folk songs on Radio Bundelkhand, one of the biggest community radio initiatives in the country targeting Bundelkhand region.

The radio station, situated at Tara Gram village in Orchha, Madhya Pradesh, was launched in October 2008. Now, 17 months later, it is not only a source of entertainment for people in villages like Tara Gram, Azadpura, Sitapur, Bagan, Gundrai, Chandravan and Lachmanpura, but also a tool of empowerment, a platform to share their stories, experiences, problems and even recipes. Radio Bundelkhand today has a fan following of around 2.5 lakh people spread across Tikamgarh district (Madhya Pradesh) and Jhansi district (Uttar Pradesh).

Each of these villages has a red feedback box, popularly called the lal dibba, hung near the panchayat bhawan. Here, villagers drop in their letters to Radio Bundelkhand—complaints, song requests, tips, recipes and sometimes simply gossip.

It was this lal dibba that helped villagers of Azadpura village in Tikamgarh district. For six months, they wrote to the authorities, asking for the only well in their village to be repaired, but nothing happened. After they dropped a letter in Radio Bundelkhand’s lal dibba, the radio station’s rural reporters aired the villagers’ problems and soon, Azadpura got a new wheel for the well and the handpump in the village was re-bored.


Radio Bundelkhand is an initiative of Development Alternatives, a Delhi based NGO working on development issues. Every day, the channel, with a frequency of 90.4 megahertz, airs programmes for five hours, from 10 in the morning to 12.30 noon and then in the evening from 5 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The channel’s five reporters go to the villages to record their stories. Apart from field reports, the radio station also records programmes at its studio.

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Courtesy: Indianexpress.com