In 4 years, feeds will be digital

The I&B ministry is proposing to bring down the high cost of digital television, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Dec 30, 2006, 02:28:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Information and Broadcasting ministry has proposed a plan that could bring down the high cost of digital television — Direct to Home, Conditional Access System and triple play (video, telephony and data on television).

The ministry’s sub-group on digital television plans to bring all cable homes under digital network in over 10 million homes by 2010 and the rest by 2012.

"The success of CAS in four metros would give impetus to our future plans. But, nobody can stop the digital revolution, where the consumer would be king," an I&B ministry official said.

The ministry has proposed to reduce duties on equipment like Set Top Boxes (STBs), head-ends (that link signals between MSO and cable operator) and dish antennas as incentives.

“Their use is likely to increase 8 to 10 times in the next four years and that will undo any revenue loss to the government,” the report said.

However, the exact percentage of duty reduction will be worked out by the ministry and Planning Commission before submitting the final proposal to the finance ministry. Once duties are reduced and competition intensifies, the STBs will be available for Rs 500-Rs 700 and the monthly bill will not exceed Rs 250, even for watching top pay channels, an official said.

But for that to happen, one may have to wait till 2010 when pay channel viewing in all metros and cities like Kanpur, Ludhiana, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Guwahati, Pune and Chandigarh will only be through STBs.

The ministry wants a market-driven television service with an independent regulator as the draft Broadcast Regulatory Bill has suggested.

“The regulator will determine maximum prices based on inputs and will also look into complaints,” a commission official said.

By the next year-end, from three, DTH operators are expected to go up to six. In addition to Dish TV of Zee Network, Tata Sky and DD Direct, three new players are expected to join soon — Reliance, Bharati and Sun TV.

“We have already signed an agreement with SUN TV, while a letter of intent has been issued to Magic of Reliance. Bharati has applied for DTH license,” an I&B official said.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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