The Hindu Business Line : CAS may be deferred in Delhi

The Delhi Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dixit, BJP leader, Mr V. K. Malhotra and the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Mr Ravi Shanker Prasad, at a meeting where it was decided to defer CAS in the Capital on Wednesday.

New Delhi , Dec. 31

EVEN as the cable industry today said the pay channels would go off air after midnight, the implementation of the Conditional Access System (CAS) in the Capital looks unlikely.

The Central Government today said it would review the issue after the Delhi Chief Minister, Ms Sheila Dikshit, and BJP MP Mr V.K. Malhotra demanded a deferment.

Speaking to newspersons, the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Centre would take a decision on postponing CAS only after it received the field reports.

Mr Prasad said that he was deeply pained and anguished over the way Multi-Service Operators (MSOs) and cable operators were pressurising the consumers to adopt CAS that was expected to be a consumer-friendly measure.

"This is a design to exploit and fleece. The Government will not remain a silent spectator in such a situation," he said, adding that Ms Dikshit and Mr Malhotra had apprised him about the hardships being faced by the consumers in South Delhi where CAS has came into effect from December 15.

Meanwhile, Government sources said that due to the High Court Order, CAS could not be deferred without proper justification. The vacation bench of the Delhi High Court had recently said that CAS should be implemented on an experimental basis in the Capital for the next three months.

Officials in the I&B Ministry said the Delhi Government has been asked to get locality wise inputs on the implementation of CAS, feedback from resident welfare associations and consumer councils. I&B Ministry is also independently planning to collect data before a final view on CAS is taken.

The cable industry, on its part, said that it would go ahead and implement CAS from January 1, 2004. "The Government cannot defer CAS as there is a Court Order. From tomorrow onwards, pay channels can be viewed only with a set-top box," said Mr Jawahar Goel, Head of Siticable.

According to Ms Roop Sharma, President, Cable Operators Federation of India (Cofi), "If consumers do not opt for STBs, the pay channels would be forced to become free-to-air (FTA). These channels are anyway earning revenues through advertisements."

So far CAS has come into play in Chennai only. The success of the rollout of CAS in Delhi would be crucial for its implementation in the other two metros of Kolkata and Mumbai.

Even as the RPG Group has readied its system for CAS, the West Bengal Government is yet to give its green signal. In Mumbai, the BJP's ally, the Shiv Sena, which controls over 10,000 cable operators in the city, has refused to implement CAS.