The much-trumpeted digitalisation of Cable TV services in four metros will now have to wait for four months beyond July 1, when it was originally scheduled to be introduced.
The
decision to defer the plan for switchover from analogue to digitalised
signals was announced by the government on Wednesday as it was found
that the metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata were not ready for
it.
"The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has decided to
modify the 30th June deadline for a complete switch over to 31st
October 2012," a statement issued by the I&B ministry today said.
"All the TRAI regulations for Digital Addressable System will come into effect from 1st November, 2012," the statement added.
It
said that the assessment of ground realities, compelled the Ministry of
I&B to set a new deadline which would now be monitored more
vigorously.
Digitalisation of the cable services in the entire
country by December 2014 is one of the ambitious tasks that the I&B
ministry has set for itself and the first step towards achieving this
goal was its implementation in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai by
June 30.
Installing Set Top Boxes (STBs) in each cable viewing
household is a precondition for Digitalisation and as per official
sources even a fortnight before the June 30, it was estimated that only
30 per cent of households had acquired STBs.
"The seeding of STBs
in cable viewing households was not satisfactory so a new deadline has
been set. The state governments involved had sought an extension of six
months till December 31st. However we have agreed to a postponement of
deadline till November 30 and this time we plan to monitor it very
strictly," a senior official told PTI.