It has not been long when films added glamour to this humble medium of communication. From the suave Vidya Balan to the naughty Preity Zinta radio has been the pet of all. Today when radio greets the world in its new avatar adding to efficacy of the good old radio is the glam quotient that owes its existence to FM channels. And when this age old mode of communication gets happening it glides its way straight to the colleges where the merger of the vivacious and the valuable takes place.

Coming up with campus radios, a concept where in house students of an institution control the console, the Symbiosis Institute of Media and communication, Lavale is the latest to go on air with its Radio Symbi in February 2009. With its youthful flavour and local touch the campus radio promises to be not only an infotainment medium but also a training ground to those who want to make it big in the radio industry.

Talking about the content, SIMC director professor Ujjwal K Chowdhury says, "The content target is three fold. It will focus on the rural crowd around, what's up in the college campus and will also feature programmes for the youth in general."

"Programmes on Radio Symbi will be an intelligent blend of educative and entertaing content. Apart from music programmes that will feature performances by local bands,there will be talk shows and panel discussions through which we plan to take up issues related to education and literacy, self employment, health and hygiene and civic issues of local concern," adds he.

The station will be operated from the SIMC campus in Lavale and would be encompassing an area of eight km radius initially, which might be extended to 16 km radius later. In other words it will be catering to listeners in SIMC, SIBM (Symbiosis college of business management), SITM (Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management), SIT (Symbiosis Institute of Technology) apart from that ISBM, FLAME institute is also within seven km, new campus of Bharti Vidya Peeth and Lavle and other villages in the vicinity.

Planning to make it big with an eight-hour time slot on air initially, the five-student team of SIMC heading the project is exploring their creative best to give their campus radio an upbeat feel. " We want to launch Radio Symbi with a revamped and interesting format contrary to the element of boredom that is generally attached to campus radios," says Anand Jain, a final year student of SIMC and one of the team members.

Apart from English and Hindi, some programmes will be in Marathi to facilitate the understanding of the localites residing in the surrounding villages. With an estimated budget of around 50 lacs, Radio Symbi is a promising venture that will become the perfect platform for the students to voice their opinions on issues, exhibit their hidden talents and for that matter even sit back and listen to good music played by the college bands.

Workshops on radio production are being conducted for the upcoming batches so that they may take up the reins when the present batch leaves. Students are being trained in the nuances of programme production as well as the technicalities.