PESHAWAR, Jan 17: Digital radio studio established in the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism (MCJ), University of Peshawar, was inaugurated here on Friday.

The MCJ’s digital radio studio has made the University of Peshawar the only educational institution in the country to have such a facility, said Dr Shah Jehan, chairman of the department of mass communication and journalism while speaking at the opening ceremony held at the University of Peshawar’s Aga Khan Auditorium.

The radio studio, established over a year ago, had recently become digital to produce quality radio programmes and transmit the same through internet by putting it on the website of the department of mass communication and journalism, said Abdul Qadir, Islamabad-based programme officer of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) — a German foundation.

It was in May 2001 when the MCJ department established a radio studio and training centre equipped with an analogue system to produce radio programmes with the financial support of the FES.

The analogue radio studio [inaugurated on May 18, 2001] has been digitalized with the financial and technical assistance of the FES, said Dr Shah Jehan.

He told Dawn that the radio would start broadcast following the installation of transmitters in June 2003.

Gunter Lehrke, resident representative of the FES, Islamabad, said that the new radio studio was the first ‘campus community radio station’ in the country.

He also handed over to Zulfiqar Hussain Gillani, the vice- chancellor of the University of Peshawar, the contract of the new radio.

Gillani was chief guest at the ceremony attended by the MCJ department, faculty members, and broadcasters from the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, Peshawar station.

The contract binds the MCJ to produce radio programmes and impart training to produce skilled broadcasters.

Also, the equipment cannot be sold, for at least seven years, to any other party. Similarly, the MCJ would have submit bi-annual report to the FES and that the equipment would be used in a manner suggested by Gotz Burki, a German\Swiss expert who provided technical assistance in installing the equipment.

In addition to the digital equipment the studio would continue to utilize the analogue machines as well, said Dr Shah Jehan. The FES, said Qadir, had extended financial support of between Rs1 million and Rs1.5 million. This also covers consultancy fee of the German technical expert and the cost of training to a batch of five students — two from the MCJ and one each from three other faculties.

Apart from the MCJ and other faculties of the university, Khyber Medical College, Engineering University and Agriculture University should also be involved, said Gillani.