Official says a dedicated frequency required to expand the project nationwide Gyan Vani.

The Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry is working on an ambitious plan to broadcast traffic updates through a dedicated radio frequency across various national highways.

The Ministry is in talks with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to get a frequency band to disseminate among national highway commuters travel tips, safety tips, traffic updates, including information on accidents and diversions.

“Road safety is our topmost priority, and keeping that in mind, we are in discussions with the Broadcasting Ministry to get a dedicated frequency for traffic updates for highway commuters,” a senior official of the Ministry said. Information on emergency medical services for injured commuters is also planned to be given.

The official said the Ministry would also have to get the approval of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for voice broadcasting.

As a pilot project, the government on Thursday launched Highway Advisory Services to give traffic updates to commuters on the 256-km Delhi-Jaipur National Highway-8.

While on the Delhi stretch All India Radio FM Gold will air the updates, AIR in Alwar and Jaipur would cover the stretch in Rajasthan.

To expand the project nationwide, a dedicated frequency would be required, the official said.

“Despite regulatory hurdles, we will have to look at other aspects such as airing entertainment bulletins, along with continuous traffic updates,” he said.

The official said Doordarshan was planning to return its unused UHF band (ultra high frequency) to the government and it had already asked the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to allocate that frequency to the Highways Ministry.

Another option was to get a licence for the unused 105.6 MHz frequency which was earlier allotted to Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) for its educational radio channel Gyan Vani.

The All India Radio had stopped the operation of the Gyan Vani station because of the discontinuation of payments by IGNOU.