Thousands of household in the Capital may not be able to watch their favourite TV shows for next two days as several Cable TV operators on Friday shut their operation to protest against the alleged unfair revenue-sharing model following the amendment in Cable TV Network Regulation Act 1995.
Cable TV operators’ associations in the Capital announced to stop operation for 48 hours starting from 9 pm on Friday. Several operators in East Delhi switched off their network, however majority of them across the Capital preferred not to participate in the protest.
Ashok Pandit, president of Trans-Yamuna Cable TV Operators’ Association claimed that all the cable operators affiliated with the association have stopped operation in their respective areas. “Our association has 55 members. They provide connectivity to over one lakh consumers. They closed their network on Friday,” he claimed.
There are nearly 2,200 cable operators having 35 lakh consumers in the Capital. "We are not against digitisation. We fully support the decision. Our protest is against the package being offered by the multi-system operator (MSO). They are offering us just a 33 per cent share, which is unfair and unacceptable," said Pandit adding that they would continue our protest till March 31.
Pandit, who represents cable operators from East Delhi areas, said local cable operators were not taken into confidence when the decision to go digital was taken. "The MSOs took few hand-picked local operators to the government to claim they had taken all of us into confidence," he said.
He said consumers paying just Rs100 to Rs150 under the analogue system would now have to pay three or four times more in addition to buying a digital set-top box. Sanjay Sahni, a cable operator from West Delhi's Rajouri Garden said, "The decision has been imposed on us. The aim of these companies is to monopolise the cable industry."
"We did all the ground work in the 1980s and 1990s when these companies were not interested in this sector. Now that we made it a multi-crore industry, these companies are taking the major revenue share," he added.
Vineet Kumar, general secretary of West Delhi Cable Operators Association, said that the Government should take into account that 75 per cent of the population in the country is still on the analog systems. "The government has taken the rights of thousands to favour these few MOSs," he said.
The Central Government has set a March 31 deadline for the second phase of digitisation, which targets a switchover to digital cable television technology in 38 cities across the country.