Mumbai: Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has invited applications for vacant MPEG-4 slots of the DD Free Dish DTH platform from the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.

The 57 e-auction process will be tentatively held from 10 February and the last day to submit applications is 8 February.

The bidding for vacant MPEG-4 slots will be open to all genre language TV channels with a reserve price set at Rs 50 lakh per year. Only satellite TV channels licensed by the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) would be allowed to participate in the e-auction. Broadcasters may either participate directly or through their authorised distribution partners. International public broadcasters who are licensed by MIB may participate in the auction process as well, stated the public broadcaster.

The channels participating in the e-auction process must pay a mandatory non-refundable processing fee of Rs 25,000 and a participation fee of Rs 10 lakhs that should be paid via demand draft. The unsuccessful bidders will receive a refund of the participation fees three weeks after the declaration of e-auction results. The successful bidders will have to make payments in ten monthly installments with each installment amounting to one-tenth of the difference between bid amount and participation fee.

In case of failure to pay the amount within the stipulated deadline, the public broadcaster said it will charge a 14.5 per cent interest per annum. If the channel does not deposit the required amount, then the participation fee along with any installment already deposited will be forfeited and the channel will be discontinued from the DD Free Dish platform.