NEW DELHI: The Government has said that there was no provision under the present digital addressable system regulations or the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 for any assistance or relief to cable TV subscribers to buy set top boxes (STBs).
Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has told the Parliament that the Ministry had assessed the requirement of STBs to be installed at the customer premises, based on Population Census 2011.
Thus, a total of 140 million STBs were required to implement cable TV digitisation in the country. Out of this, 30 million STBs had already been installed under phase I and phase II and the balance 110 million are required to be installed in the remaining two phases which are under implementation.
He said the Ministry does not make any assessment with regard to quantum of revenue generation arising out of sale of CAS and DAS.
He said according to a notification issued on 11 November 2011 issued by the Ministry, digitisation of cable TV in India is to be completed in four phases. Phase I and phase-II of digitisation have already been completed.
Phase III is to be completed by 31 December 2015 whereas phase IV is to be completed by 31 December 2016.
