A tiny Indian town’s hopes of having its own local public FM radio station have been dashed after the country’s public broadcaster cancelled plans to launch a channel

Alappuzha, in the backwaters of the state of Kerala, was promised an All India Radio FM channel two years ago and had already hired 35 staff in preparation.

“In 2012, Prasar Bharati approved the proposal for setting up a 10 KW FM station with a coverage of 50 km here. That proposal has been cancelled,” an official with the national broadcaster in Alappuzha told The Times of India.

Prasar Bharati has also stopped appointing staff to the station and as many as 20 people have reportedly been laid off.

Although Alappuzha has a medium wave station, it only relays programmes from stations in the nearby city of Thiruvananthapuram and the national capital New Delhi.

However, Alappuzha listeners can tune into FM stations broadcasting from the city of Kochi.