All India Radio (AIR) would upgrade around 200 stations technologically and about 70 FM stations would be digitalised fully under the target set under 11th five year plan, said SR Agarwal, Engineering chief of AIR inaugurating the conference of the engineering heads of AIR stations of north zone, on Saturday (07-11-2009). 

           Aggrawal said that the engineers should abreast themselves of changing technology to cope with the challenges thrown by fast-changing technology and the forthcoming private broadcasting operators in this field. He called upon the engineers of radio stations for constant monitoring and maintenance of services to minimise the failures. Despite the shortage of manpower in the organisations the skilled technical staff could improve the quality and output of the AIR services, he added. He also reiterated that engineers should always be at par with new technology. The engineering chief said that since the procurement cycle for equipments is long and the technological maintenance is a huge and expensive task, the available funds should be used judiciously. 

          Emphasising the importance of north zone stations of AIR, Agarwal appreciated the role of the staff in the most difficult stations of north, especially in J and K. He said that in the 11th plan the AIR would give a very high priority to digitalisation of its radio stations throughout the country. The conference was also addressed by Deepak Mehrotra, chief engineer (maintenance), BK Aggarwal and N Srinivasan.