June 23rd was a big day for the public radio of Pakistan (Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation – PBC) and DRM. By giving green light to the installation and commissioning of a 1000KW digital DRM Medium Wave transmitter, with required budget, approved by the highest forum chaired by Minister Planning & Development Mr. Ahsan Iqbal, and with the approval of the full digitisation plan DRM is now the official digital standard of Pakistan.
This has been a long journey and this achievement follows the effort of many Pakistani experts.
In 2014 a DRM Steering Committee was constituted within PBC led then by the then Director Engineering Mr. Kamran Saeed. It immediately started working on adoption of DRM standard in Pakistan. Kamran Saeed provided full support and a feasibility report on all digital standards. The committee took the lead. With the great involvement and support of the committee started writing the policy document for digital migration and adoption of digital radio standard.
In 2017, the then cabinet approved in principle the project. In 2020, PBC Board of Directors approved the policy document and PC-1 was prepared and submitted.
The budget outline being finalised the transmitter site was the next big question and the PBC HPT Complex Rawat Islamabad is has been selected as suitable site for 1000KW project.
Successful and successive demonstrations were conducted by the DRM steering committee to the management of PBC the Minister of Information and Broadcasting and to the successive DGs of Radio Pakistan to convince them of the importance of adopting the DRM standard for the country.
The current DG of Radio Pakistan, Mr Tahir Hassan gave the final push to this mega project which has been pending since 2020.
According to Ghulam Mujaddid, Technical advisor to DG PBC “with consistent effort and hard work I wish this project not only revive the broadcasting landscape in Pakistan but also push a new life in Radio Pakistan. After installation Pakistan will be at par with its neighbouring countries.”
