Decks have been cleared for the rollout of the third-phase of private FM radio after the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) met and gave their nod recently. The rollout of FM-III has been stuck for nearly two years over various issues including recent objections from the defense ministry on the interference of FM radio waves with those of defence installations once the new radio stations come up.

          The FM-III, as it is called, will see the rollout of 806 new FM channels across 217 towns in the country. The private FM radio will cover all the towns with a population of over 100,000.

       Raising security concerns and interference of spectrum, the defence ministry had suggested that all private radio operators would have to seek their permission before establishing any FM radio station under FM-III, especially when the radio towers were in the close vicinity of a defence installation.

          However, the Committee of Secretaries have resolved the matter, sources said. According to the agreement reached, the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry will share a detailed list of all sites where radio towers will be set up under FM-III. The defence ministry will get two months to communicate its views on the list of sites for radio towers under FM-III. “In case of any objections from the defence ministry, the height of the proposed radio towers will be reduced to 25 meters from the mandated 30 meters,” a top I&B official said

           Also, the (CoS) approved increasing the foreign investment cap in radio companies from the existing 20% to 26%. Recently, even the Trai recommended increasing the FDI in private FM radio sector to 26%.

          With regard to the auctions of frequencies for FM-III, the committee suggested that the I&;B ministry may adopt the recent model that was put in use by the department of telecommunications for the 3G and broadband auctions recently.

        The committee included representations from the I&B ministry, defence ministry, home ministry, DIPP and the Cabinet Secretary amongst other