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As the digitisation deadline expired on Monday, lakhs of television sets without set-top boxes went blank across the country. From Faridabad in the neighbourhood of Delhi to Hyderabad in the South, viewers and local cable operators were left fuming as signals were switched off.
Hyderabad, Pune, Kanpur, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Patna, Srinagar and Coimbatore were among the 38 cities across 15 states selected for phase-II of the digitisation process. They were asked to switch to settop boxes by March 31. However, five cities - Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Vadodra and Surat - had obtained a stay from courts. As the deadline ended midnight, analog channels stopped airing in most of the 33 cities where digitisation kicked in.
Transparency
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari disputed the claims of blackout. "It is not that after the expiry of the deadline we automatically cut the cable connections. We do it in a calibrated manner, giving the TV users some additional time to undertake the switchover," he told Mail Today.
"The entire objective of digitisation is to bring about transparency in the broadcasting sector, which benefits all stakeholders, from the consumers to the broadcasters, encompassing the LCOs (local cable operators) and MSOs (multi-system operators). We are sensitive that we are implementing a very ambitious remit and we will do it in a manner which is as painless to the consumers as possible," he added.
I&B ministry sources said 75 per cent digitisation had already taken place in the 33 cities covered under Phase-II.
But Roop Sharma, president of the Cable Operators Federation of India, alleged that the government was misleading people by providing wrong data. "Set-top boxes come from China and they are in short supply. The truth is that only about 30 per cent of digitisation has been done," she said. In Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, nearly 50 lakh TV sets blacked out on Monday afternoon, about 12 hours after the deadline expired. A large number of consumers had failed to switch to the digital mode due to nonavailability of enough quality set top boxes and lack of proper awareness campaign by the Centre and the state government.
The stakeholders blamed the state government for reacting too late. It was only on Sunday evening that chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy wrote to Tewari seeking an extension of the deadline. Closer to the national Capital, almost 50 per cent households in Faridabad - the only city in Haryana to be covered - are believed to have failed to install set-top boxes, though the district administration and cable service providers were loathe to give the exact figures.
On the other hand, Ghaziabad, one of the seven cities in Uttar Pradesh to be targeted by the digitisation drive, fared much better. Around 1.7 lakh, i.e. 80 per cent, of cable households in Ghaziabad were covered by the set-top box installation drive. "We are encouraging people to install set-up boxes," said A.K. Singh Rathore, deputy commissioner, entertainment department, Ghaziabad.
Lakhs of TV sets without set-top boxes across country go blank as digitisation deadline ends : India, News - India Today
Hyderabad, Pune, Kanpur, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Patna, Srinagar and Coimbatore were among the 38 cities across 15 states selected for phase-II of the digitisation process. They were asked to switch to settop boxes by March 31. However, five cities - Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Vadodra and Surat - had obtained a stay from courts. As the deadline ended midnight, analog channels stopped airing in most of the 33 cities where digitisation kicked in.
Transparency
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari disputed the claims of blackout. "It is not that after the expiry of the deadline we automatically cut the cable connections. We do it in a calibrated manner, giving the TV users some additional time to undertake the switchover," he told Mail Today.
"The entire objective of digitisation is to bring about transparency in the broadcasting sector, which benefits all stakeholders, from the consumers to the broadcasters, encompassing the LCOs (local cable operators) and MSOs (multi-system operators). We are sensitive that we are implementing a very ambitious remit and we will do it in a manner which is as painless to the consumers as possible," he added.
I&B ministry sources said 75 per cent digitisation had already taken place in the 33 cities covered under Phase-II.
But Roop Sharma, president of the Cable Operators Federation of India, alleged that the government was misleading people by providing wrong data. "Set-top boxes come from China and they are in short supply. The truth is that only about 30 per cent of digitisation has been done," she said. In Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, nearly 50 lakh TV sets blacked out on Monday afternoon, about 12 hours after the deadline expired. A large number of consumers had failed to switch to the digital mode due to nonavailability of enough quality set top boxes and lack of proper awareness campaign by the Centre and the state government.
The stakeholders blamed the state government for reacting too late. It was only on Sunday evening that chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy wrote to Tewari seeking an extension of the deadline. Closer to the national Capital, almost 50 per cent households in Faridabad - the only city in Haryana to be covered - are believed to have failed to install set-top boxes, though the district administration and cable service providers were loathe to give the exact figures.
On the other hand, Ghaziabad, one of the seven cities in Uttar Pradesh to be targeted by the digitisation drive, fared much better. Around 1.7 lakh, i.e. 80 per cent, of cable households in Ghaziabad were covered by the set-top box installation drive. "We are encouraging people to install set-up boxes," said A.K. Singh Rathore, deputy commissioner, entertainment department, Ghaziabad.
Lakhs of TV sets without set-top boxes across country go blank as digitisation deadline ends : India, News - India Today
