AIR's FM LRS (Local Radio Station) was inaugurated on 1 July 2000 at 06:00 in Kodaikanal relaying Madurai programs in the frequency 100.5 MHz.
[4] India first experimented with private FM broadcasts in Goa and the large metropolitan areas of Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Chennai.
[citation needed] It sold airtime blocks on its FM channels in Indore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Vizag, and Goa to private operators, who developed their own program content.
[5] It launched with presenters such as Vera, Rohit Barker, Seetal Iyer, Jonzie Kurian, Geeta Modgil, Suresh Venkat, and Chaitanya Hegde and Priya Ganapathy on the weekends.
India's earlier attempts to privatise its FM channels ran into rough weather when private players bid heavily and most could not meet their commitments to pay the government the amounts they owed.
[7] The Supreme Court of India on 17 October 2013 issued a public interest litigation to the central government requesting that the rules should be changed to allow FM stations to broadcast news reports.