Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (JD)
Mangaluru, Dec 26: Additional deputy commissioner (ADC) Kumar on Saturday December 26 instructed all the cable operators in the city to install digital set-top boxes for their consumers by December 31, even as the operators sought more time, but in vain.
Addressing a meeting at the deputy commissioner's office here, he said, "The digitalization process has been going on since 2011. This is the third phase of digitalization wherein all the televisions in the city with cable connections have to operate with the digital set-top boxes. In this regard a meeting was also convened 15 days ago, and stress has been laid on this since the beginning of the year. The present analogue signals will not be transmitted from January 1, 2016."
The cable operators present requested the ADC to extend the deadline by three months stating they had planned to install the set-top boxes step by step and now there are only 65,000 set-top boxes in the market whereas about 1,00,000 are needed immediately. "In many houses, as there are only elderly people, it is very difficult to install the set-top boxes within the time frame. Hence we request you to urge the union governemnt officials to extend the deadlin on our behalf," the cable operators told ADC Kumar.
The ADC in reply said that a request in this regard had been already submitted by the Karnataka government but it was not accepted. He further said that except for the deadline, other issues could be taken care of and instructed the cable operators to install the set-top boxes without delay, as households without them would not be able to watch TV channels from January 1.
An official said that the digitalization process began in 2011 when the union goverment made digital set-top boxes compulsory in metro and cosmopoliton cities. "In phase three, consumers in tier two and tier three cities are required to install the digital set-top boxes. As per some statistics, 63 percent of the consumers do not have digital set-top boxes in the city," he said.
"The motive behind the compulsion is to give the better signal quality to the viewers and stop the tax leakage. There have been many complaints regarding cable operators, and it is alleged that while there are only 40 to 50 authorized connections whose tax is paid to the government, there are about 400-500 unauthorized connections which are extensions of the above authorized connections. Once the digital set-top boxes are installed there will be no signal flickering and these problems will also be solved," the official said.
District information officer Khader Shah, cable operators Vishwas Das, Shreenivas were present.