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The Information
& Broadcasting Ministry, which had set up a task force on conditional
access system (CAS) in September last year to solve the issue of
arbitrary rates changed by the cable operators and under-reporting
by them which results into revenue loss to broadcasters, is expected
to recommend that cable operators should provide a set-top box to
the consumer and charge additional sum for that.
If this practice
goes well, this will mean that a subscriber will have options to
select the exact bouquet of channels he wants to see. During its
last meeting, the task force had decided that all encrypted channels
would be defined as subscription based channels and routed through
a set-top box. Non-encrypted free to air channels need not go through
the set-top box, it was decided. The government is also expected
to decide the price of free to air channels including Doordarshan
I an II in addition to its all regional channels. This move is expected
to protect the consumer’s interest and stop the cable operators
from charging arbitrary rates for their services.
During the
recent task force meeting on conditional access system (CAS), it
was decided that Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) would prescribe
the standards and performance parameters for CAS and make it compulsory
for cable operators to declare the capacity of their equipment to
the consumers. The task force has representation from not only the
government, cable operators, multi system operators, and broadcasters
but also from the consumers. Meanwhile, the government has said
that there is no need to appoint any regulation for cable industry
as the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 already
exists.
But senior
officials from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting have
started feeling a growing need for a ‘active monitoring’
of all the satellite channels in India. Though the Central Monitoring
Service (CMS), a government agency under All India Radio is constantly
monitoring PTV which recently misquoted Zee TV, in one of its news
bulletin. Zee TV was informed about this by some govt. officials
and Zee TV immediately sent letters of protest to PTV and Pakistan’s
High Commission in India. Information & Broadcasting Minister
Sushma Swaraj while talking to journalists has denied that there
is any immediate plan to ban PTV but she informed that the channel
is being monitored.
For regulation
on satellite channels in India there exists an act but for monitoring
of these channels and local cable channels, there are no such active
body which can keep an eye on the contents, news bulletins, discussion
and inform the government about them. Says a official of I &
B Ministry "most of the Indian channel understand their basic
limits but sometimes during a discussions or news bulletins something
comes up which should not go on air in public interest."
—Amitabh
Parashar
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