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Chennai: Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa on Sunday requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene and provide a licence to state-run Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corp. Ltd to offer digitized programming on its network.
Jayalalithaa, in a letter to the Prime Minister, asked him to direct the information and broadcasting ministry to issue a licence to Arasu Cable. The state-run cable network applied for a digital addressable system (DAS) licence on 5 July, but is yet to receive one.
Nine other operators from Tamil Nadu who applied for the licence have received it.
“I urge you to intervene in the matter and direct the ministry of information and broadcasting to issue the Digital Addressable System licence to the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corp Ltd immediately,” Jayalalithaa said in her letter, copies of which were released to the press.
The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill 2011, which made digitization mandatory, also made it compulsory for all cable companies to get a DAS licence from the government to operate their distribution networks.
Since its re-launch in September 2011, Arasu has built a network that covers 31 districts in the state (but not Chennai) and reaches 4.9 million households.
The number of households serviced by cable companies in the state is estimated at 12 million, according to M.R. Srinivasan, general secretary of Chennai Metro Cable TV Operators Association. India has 120 million cable households.
Chennai is the only metropolitan city among Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata where digitization is yet to be implemented.
Cable operators in Chennai moved the Madras high court seeking an extension of the 31 October deadline for the digitization process, citing non-availability of set-top boxes that are essential to provide digitized programming. The case is still pending with the divisional bench of the high court.
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/lb...ithaa-writes-to-PM-on-cable-digitization.html
Jayalalithaa, in a letter to the Prime Minister, asked him to direct the information and broadcasting ministry to issue a licence to Arasu Cable. The state-run cable network applied for a digital addressable system (DAS) licence on 5 July, but is yet to receive one.
Nine other operators from Tamil Nadu who applied for the licence have received it.
“I urge you to intervene in the matter and direct the ministry of information and broadcasting to issue the Digital Addressable System licence to the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corp Ltd immediately,” Jayalalithaa said in her letter, copies of which were released to the press.
The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill 2011, which made digitization mandatory, also made it compulsory for all cable companies to get a DAS licence from the government to operate their distribution networks.
Since its re-launch in September 2011, Arasu has built a network that covers 31 districts in the state (but not Chennai) and reaches 4.9 million households.
The number of households serviced by cable companies in the state is estimated at 12 million, according to M.R. Srinivasan, general secretary of Chennai Metro Cable TV Operators Association. India has 120 million cable households.
Chennai is the only metropolitan city among Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata where digitization is yet to be implemented.
Cable operators in Chennai moved the Madras high court seeking an extension of the 31 October deadline for the digitization process, citing non-availability of set-top boxes that are essential to provide digitized programming. The case is still pending with the divisional bench of the high court.
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/lb...ithaa-writes-to-PM-on-cable-digitization.html
