Ranchi, Dec. 23: Community radio, extended this year to Angara on the outskirts of the state capital, has run into the censor wall.

Since the half-an-hour weekly audio clip uses the government- owned All India Radio as the platform, abuses, insinuations and allegations against public servants, mouthed by villagers, are being systematically deleted or diluted.

?We cannot allow charges to be aired without verification and without giving public servants a chance to refute them,? argued Sudhir Paul from Manthan, which initiated the experiment in the Panki-Chainpur area of Palamau last year. The AIR station director concurred and said its content code would not allow airing of allegations.

Despite the dilution, the response has been encouraging, Paul claimed. Barefoot reporters from villages have been interviewing people, recording songs and music, conducting social audits and even recording radio drama on the election and chronicling assurances made by legislators to the people. Community radio has in fact emboldened villagers to call the bluff of public distribution outlets.

?Earlier, villagers would be tersely told that since they did not turn up earlier, their quota had been sold. Now they are questioning dealers and pointing out that the quota was meant for them and could not be sold to others,? Paul claimed.

In some cases, people have even lodged complaints with the police, leading to marked improvement in the public distribution system.

Making a presentation at a recent seminar on ?Human Development? here, Paul referred to a survey of newspapers in the state between August and October this year. The survey revealed that only 3 per cent of the published reports related to public issues like food security, health, displacement, migration, land, mining and irrigation.

Even the leading language newspaper in the state devoted 39 per cent of its reports to these issues while the percentage in the English newspaper surveyed fell to just 3. The survey also found that 73 per cent reports on these public issues were carried inside, while only 27 per cent found slots on the front pages.