The Hindu Business Line : First phase of CAS rollout set for Sept 1

SETTING in process the first phase of the CAS rollout, the Government on Friday issued a notification that will bring parts of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata city and the whole of Chennai under the new regime from September 1.

Besides the Chennai Metropolitan area, among the places that have been notified are Nariman Point, Cuffe Prade, Fort, Marine Drive, Church Gate, Dadar and Mahim in south Mumbai.

Most areas of south Delhi and some parts of central Delhi will go under the CAS regime in the first phase of the staggered rollout.

The Government estimates that nearly three lakh set-top boxes would be in the country by July-end covering the demand in the notified areas.

While south Delhi has 2.4 lakh cable homes and an estimated requirement of 40,000-45,000 set-top boxes, south Mumbai has 4.10 lakh cable subscribers and the requirement of set-top boxes could be as high as 80-90 per cent. As far as Kolkata and Chennai are concerned, the Government after an assessment of the two cities, does not anticipate a high demand for set-top boxes as the consumers there may are not very interested in Hindi pay channels.

According to the agreement reached last week at the PMO, all cable TV consumers in the four metros will pay only Rs 72 plus taxes for all channels from August 1 till the time they get notified for CAS

Meanwhile, leading broadcasters including NDTV 24X7, Aaj Tak, Eenadu, Sahara and Sun TV on Friday asked the Government to provide them with a level-playing field and charged that some foreign broadcasters were bypassing laid-down norms by technical restructuring."Foreign channels have restructured their ownership pattern to bypass the laid-down guidelines based on certain technicalities," the Indian broadcasters said in a statement here. Some of the foreign broadcasters operating in India have other channels in their fold apart from the news channel, which they had restructured, the statement added.

The statement urged the Government to critically review and address the ownership guidelines pertaining to various channels as practised in countries like the UK and the US.

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