KOLKATA, India (UCAN) – Financial constraints have prompted Salesians and a diocese to collaborate with a Jesuit media center to revive a radio program aimed at mainly Muslim listeners.

A villager with a Radio Veritas Asia Bengali program schedule on his rickshaw in West Bengal

Jesuit Father Joseph Pymbellykunnel, who directs Chitrabani (sight and sound) in Kolkata, told UCA News that his media center and Banideepti in Dhaka have been preparing Bengali radio programs for the Manila-based Radio Veritas Asia (RVA) listeners for over three decades.

However, the radio recently cut 30 percent of its subsidy it gave to the two South Asian centers to prepare the Bengali program and reduced the number of staff from three to two, the Jesuit priest said. Now, the Salesians and Krishnagar diocese in West Bengal have agreed to become partners in the mission, he added.

Chitrabani is involved in producing radio programs for the Church in West Bengal, and it was necessary to tap resources available in the state, said Father Pymbellykunnel, who is also secretary of the regional bishops’ council’s communication commission.

Salesian Father Robin Gomes, who produces two of the weekly RVA Bengali programs since 1998, said his center, Nitika, another media center in Kolkata, did not receive funds for the past year.

“We had to produce the programs from our resources, and therefore the Salesian superior has agreed to support the production of these two programs,” Father Gomes, who coordinated the Bengali program from Manila during 1995-2001, told UCA News.

Father Subhash Baroi, director of Prerona (inspiration), the pastoral center of Krishnagar diocese, told UCA News that his bishop and laypeople have come forward to help RVA’s Bengali programs because they are convinced about the “grave need” to collaborate to keep the programs going.

Father Baroi, who was also in the RVA Bengali section in Manila, said he is now working on details to support Chitrabani produce programs for Manila.

Dilip Majumdar, who produces RVA Bengali programs, said radio reaches millions and promotes interfaith dialogue with Muslims. He said RVA’s Bengali programs reach some 70 percent of the Muslims in the area. If Muslims of rural Bengal know about Christ and the Bible, it is thanks to RVA programs, he told UCA News.

India’s West Bengal state and neighboring Bangladesh have Bengali as a common language. Muslims form 25 percent of West Bengal’s total population of 80 million while 90 percent of Bangladesh’s 160 million people are Muslims.