MIB overhauls inter-ministerial committee; community radio under ambit for first time

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) has substantially reworked the composition and mandate of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) responsible for policing content aired on private FM radio stations, in an order dated July 15, 2026, that supersedes a similarly-worded directive issued barely ten weeks earlier on May 5, 2026. 

The revised order, reviewed by e4m, most notably brings Community Radio Stations (CRS) under the committee's jurisdiction for the first time — a significant widening of scope that was absent from the original May constitution of the panel.

The July version represents a considerably more elaborate and legally tightened iteration of the committee's charter, reflecting what appears to be a deliberate effort by the Ministry to close gaps identified in the earlier order within a short span of two-and-a-half months.

From FM-Only to a Dual-Mandate Committee

The May order had constituted the IMC purely under Clause 12.1 and Clause 24.1 of the Private FM Radio Phase III Policy, 2011 — provisions that require FM permission holders to comply with the Programme and Advertisement Code followed by All India Radio, or any other code the Central Government may prescribe. Its mandate began and ended with private commercial FM broadcasters.

The July order changes this fundamentally. It explicitly states it is being issued "in supersession of this Ministry's Order of even no. dated 05.05.2026," and goes on to give the reconstituted committee a second, independent line of authority: oversight of Community Radio Stations under Clause 6 of the Revised Policy Guidelines for setting up Community Radio Stations in India, dated 13.02.2024, which governs imposition of penalties and revocation of Permission Agreements for CRS operators found in violation of Clause 5 of that policy.

In effect, one committee will now sit in judgment over complaints from two entirely different categories of broadcaster — profit-oriented private FM networks on one hand, and not-for-profit, community-owned local radio stations on the other — each governed by its own distinct policy framework, penalty structure and eligibility norms.

Committee Leadership Restructured and Expanded

The composition of the panel itself has also changed in a way that signals the Ministry wants tighter, more senior control over the process.

Under the May order, the committee was chaired by whoever held the position of "Additional Secretary/Joint Secretary" — a single, either/or designation — and had nine members in total, addressed to just one officer, Shri Prabhat, Additional Secretary.

The July order splits this leadership structure into two dedicated roles. The Additional Secretary, MIB now holds the Chairperson's post exclusively, while a new seat for Joint Secretary (Industry), MIB has been created as a standalone member position — a role that did not exist in the earlier order. 

This takes the total committee strength to ten members, and the order is now addressed to two officers instead of one: Prabhat, Additional Secretary, and Shruti Singh, Joint Secretary.

The remaining membership — representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Women & Child Development, the Department of Consumer Affairs, FICCI, the Press Council of India, the Bar Council of India, and the All India Radio Programme Wing, with a Deputy Secretary/Director serving as Member-Convener — remains unchanged across both orders. 

A Quiet Correction to a Clause Citation

A granular but legally meaningful change lies buried in paragraph 4 of both orders, dealing with the committee's power to recommend penalties. The May order stated that penalties for violation of Clause 12.1 of the Private FM Radio Policy would be imposed "as per Clause 24.2 thereof" — a citation that appears to have been an error, since the Private FM Radio Phase III Policy's operative provision on penalty recommendation is Clause 24.1, not 24.2 (a discrepancy also visible within the May order's own body text, which cites Clause 24.1 twice elsewhere while referencing 24.2 in this specific sub-clause).

The July order fixes this, correctly citing "Clause 24.1 thereof" for FM violations, and adds a parallel new sub-clause for CRS violations under Clause 5 of the community radio guidelines — a provision that had no equivalent in the earlier order since CRS was outside its scope altogether.

From Inline Text to a Formal Annexure

Procedurally, the two orders also differ in how they present the underlying policy text. The May order reproduced the relevant portions of Clause 12.1 and Clause 24.1 directly within the body of the order. The July order instead moves this material into a separate, formally labelled "Annexure-I," and — reflecting the newly added CRS mandate — attaches the complete nine-page Revised Policy Guidelines for setting up Community Radio Stations in India, dated February 13, 2024, in full.

This annexed CRS policy document is extensive and covers the entire regulatory architecture for community radio in India, including:

• Eligibility criteria — restricting CRS licences to not-for-profit organisations such as State Agriculture Universities, ICAR institutions, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, registered societies, public charitable trusts, SHG-based organisations and educational institutions, while barring individuals, political parties, profit-driven entities, banned organisations and religious bodies from applying;
• Selection process, including a Rs 2,500 online processing fee, a defined timeline for inter-ministerial clearances, and issuance of a Letter of Intent (LOI) followed by a ten-year Grant of Permission Agreement (GOPA), extendable in five-year blocks;
• Content regulation norms, requiring at least 50% of CRS content to be generated with local community participation, with at least half of that focused on women's empowerment beyond conventional themes like nutrition and beauty, and a near-total prohibition on independently produced news and current affairs content — CRS operators may only air news sourced verbatim or translated from Akashvani (All India Radio), with limited carve-outs for traffic/weather updates, local cultural events, examination results, and public safety announcements;
• A graded penalty framework — a first violation attracts suspension of up to one month, a second up to three months depending on severity, and a third results in outright revocation of the Permission Agreement, with revoked entities barred from reapplying for five years, without prejudice to separate action under the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, and the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933;
• Technical parameters, capping CRS transmitter power at 100 Watts ERP under normal circumstances (extendable to 250 Watts subject to IMC approval) and prescribing antenna heights between 15 and 30 metres to mitigate RF radiation hazards; and
• Funding and sustenance rules, permitting CRS entities to seek multilateral aid (subject to FCRA clearance for foreign funds) and capping advertising airtime at 12 minutes per hour of broadcast, with surplus revenue restricted to funding the organisation's core developmental objectives.

Powers Available to the Reconstituted Committee

Under both orders, the IMC's core function remains recommendatory rather than adjudicatory in the final sense — it examines complaints and grievances placed before it and makes recommendations to the Central Government, which retains final decision-making authority on imposition of penalties or other action. The committee's recommendations can extend to:

• Imposition of monetary or operational penalties for Programme and Advertising Code violations by private FM permission holders;
• Under the new July mandate, imposition of penalties for CRS violations under the community radio guidelines; and
• Directing a broadcaster to delete or modify specific content, or to take a programme or an entire channel off-air for a defined period, with reasons recorded in writing.

Crucially, both orders preserve a natural-justice safeguard carried over verbatim: before any penalty is imposed, the permission holder must be given an opportunity to represent its case.

The Bigger Picture

Taken together, the two orders trace a clear regulatory arc over a short ten-week window. What began in May as a narrowly scoped, single-mandate committee focused exclusively on private commercial FM radio has, by July, evolved into a broader, better-staffed, dual-mandate body that now also polices India's community radio sector — an area that had previously operated under its own separate guidelines without a dedicated inter-ministerial grievance mechanism referenced in the same instrument as private FM.

The rapid supersession — and the granular corrections embedded within it, from the Clause 24.1/24.2 citation fix to the formal annexation of the full CRS policy — suggests the Ministry moved quickly to plug both a substantive gap (absence of CRS oversight) and a technical drafting error in its original order, while simultaneously reinforcing the committee's institutional weight through the addition of a dedicated Joint Secretary (Industry) seat and a two-officer point of contact at the top.

For India's roughly 500-plus operational community radio stations and the private FM industry alike, the reconstituted IMC now represents a single, unified — if still recommendatory — checkpoint for content-related grievances, backed by representation from law enforcement, consumer protection, industry, legal and media oversight bodies.