NEW DELHI: The transmission of All India Radio FM channels in the capital which was disrupted following a fire at the Pitampura Tower over the weekend has been normalised.

AIR Director General L D Mandloi said that two new transmitters which had begun functioning had helped in fully restoring the services of AIR FM Gold (106.4) and AIR Rainbow (102.6) channels.

AIR sources said that Gyan Vani FM and the services of three private FM channels Radio City, Red FM and Radio Mirchi will be fully restored by late this evening.

Other private FM channels like Big FM and Oye FM operate from a different transmitter and their services have continued uninterrupted, the sources added.

The fire broke out at 200 meter high television tower in Pitampura area of North - West Delhi on Saturday night. It was brought under control after about two hours with the help of fifteen fire tenders.

However, the cables which connect the transmitters to the aerials were badly damaged affecting the transmission services.

Terrestrial transmission of Doordarshan is also expected to be fully restored by this evening, though DD engineering in chief R K Sinha said that it has been partly restored by yesterday.

NEW DELHI: Denying it was attempting to augment its All India Radio?s FM channels before the auction of the Phase III for private FM Radio, the Government today said an amount of Rs 1.42 billion had been sanctioned for AIR FM expansion under the Eleventh Plan.

New transmitters of various capacities were being installed in 130 places throughout the country, including 100 relay transmitters of 100 Watt. In addition, the old transmitters at 34 places were being replaced by new FM transmitters.

 
Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting S Jagathrakshakan admitted in Parliament that state government had been asked to allocate land free of cost to AIR for setting up the AIR FM channels.

He said of the 313 cities for which Phase III had been approved, AIR already had FM channels in 153 cities including those in the pipeline. However, it does not have any AIR FM transmitters in the remaining 160 cities, though 50 of these cities will get relay transmitters in the 11th Plan.

Of these 160 cities, land is required at 153 from the state government, and letters had been written to the state governments of 19 states to allocate the land free of cost, the Minister added.

All the 160 cities will have studios with production facilities and a proposal is being framed for inclusion under the 12th Plan.