The first deadline of December 31 this year, for complete digitisation of cable TV in the country has been pushed further. According to official information, while Phase III of digitisation is scheduled to be completed by December 2015 Phase IV has been postponed to December 2016.
According to sources, the extension has come in the wake of huge problems being faced by the cable TV industry. It is said to be facing a shortage of funds for churning out the present requirement of 75 million set top boxes for the digitisation of the entire country.
The Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar shortly after taking over had stressed on indigenous production of set top boxes, instead of having to acquire them from Malaysia and China.This according to him will bring out a 15 per cent reduction in prices. The last two phases constitute about 70 per cent of the television viewers.
The priority of the programme had also been stressed by The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in its 100 day achievement. Accordingly, the Ministry has set up a Task Force to steer the two phases, which will cover about eight crore cable TV homes in India. The project was also said to be a step towards the Prime Minister’s dream of a Digital India, as it will enable quick penetration of broadband connectivity in India.
Earlier this year, the MIB Minister from the previous UPA Government, Manish Tewari had held a meeting of task force with all the stakeholders to state that digitisation was to go on as scheduled with Phases III and IV being merged. The deadline then was kept at December 2014 to implement digitisation in digital addressable system (DAS) Phase III and IV while simultaneously implementing the billing process in Phase I and II.