The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has rejected the proposal to extend the deadline for cable TV digitization programme. This comes after the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting proposed to extend the deadline of the project by a year till 2016. Currently, the industry is facing shortage of about 75 million set top boxes (STBs), which are imported mainly from Malaysia and China.
However, TRAI is of the view that extending the timeline of the third and fourth phases of this project to the end of 2015 and 2016, respectively, will be a major setback to the Digital India initiative.
Digitisation includes routing of cable TV signals through STBs that can track channels. It would improve picture and sound quality on televisions for consumers, and provide higher revenue for cable multisystem operators. The first two phases covering the four metros and cities with population of more than one million were implemented by March 2013. TRAI has been working on the third and fourth phases for the past six months under which all urban areas, including municipalities were to be covered by the end-September 2014 and the rest of India by December 31, 2014.
