Growth & Development The first radio programme in India was broadcast by the Radio Club of Mumbai in June 1923. It was followed by the setting up of a Broadcasting Service that began broadcasting in India in July 1927 on an experimental basis at Mumbai and Kolkata simultaneously under an agreement between Government of India and a private company called the Indian Broadcasting Company Ltd. When India became independent, the AIR network had only six Stations located at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow and Tiruchirapalli with a total complement of 18 transmitters - six on the medium wave and the remaining on short wave. Radio listening on medium wave was confined to urban limits of these cities. As against a mere 2,75,000 receiving sets at the time of Independence, now there are about 132 million estimated radio sets in the country. Now the broadcast scenario has drastically changed with 215 broadcasting centers, including 77 local Radio Stations, covering nearly cent-per-cent country's population.

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