India’s public broadcaster All India Radio (AIR) has stopped airing 37 educational channels of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) due to non-payment of dues, reports Deccan Herald.

IGNOU, which is owned by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, is said to owe the broadcaster $3.53 million (Rs 216.4 million) since April last year.

Its educational FM network ‘Gyanvani’ – which was taken off air on October 1 – served more than 3 million students across the country.

AIR had earlier issued a notice to IGNOU on July 9 threatening to discontinue Gyanvani services if payments were not made by July 29.

IGNOU had then cited bureaucratic tangles and requested the public broadcaster to continue offering the service “for the benefit of the society at large”.

It told AIR that the matter was under “active consideration” of the Human Resource Development Ministry, hoping that all dues will be cleared soon.

Director of the Electronic Media Production Centre at IGNOU, Iftikhar Khan told Deccan Herald: “This is a kind of public service provided by the government to the people. It is just a matter of transfer of money from one government department to another. Such delays are bound to happen because of inherent nature of governmental set up.”