NEW DELHI: With nine more television channels getting clearance, the total number of permitted private television channels has risen to 890 by the end of July 2017, still far short of the claim made last year that the country will have 1500 channels by the end of March this year.

The master list issued by the government of 883 includes nine channels the permission of which was “cancelled by the ministry of information and broadcasting due to security denial by the home ministry. However, a stay order (has been granted) by (the) court.”

The number of total channels had grown from 869 in February-end 2016 to 892 in February-end this year but had fallen by 10 since then. In fact, the number had risen to 899 by the end of December 2016 when the total cancellations were 155. By January-end this year, the number had fallen to 889 of which 12 banned channels had received stay orders from courts.

Channels permitted in July include two news channels: Cauvery News in Tamil owned by Cauvery Power Trading Chennai Pvt. Ltd and TVS Kannada owned by Shreya Broadcasting Pvt. Ltd.

Other channels permitted in July this year are: ATR owned by Lex Sportel Vision Pvt. Ltd; V6 ENT in Telugu owned by VIL Media Pvt. Ltd, Travelxp owned by Media Worldwide Limited; My Cam and The Office, both owned by Viacom 18 Media Private Limited; Pitaara owned by Paul E-Commerce Private Limited; and Shop 5 owned by Shopping Zone India TV Pvt. Ltd.

The list of the channels permitted as on 30 July 2017 along with their area and language of operation and the names of owning companies has been placed on the MIB site.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee for Information Technology which goes into issues relating to information and broadcasting had last year noted that the State Finance Commission, while drafting its proposals for the 12th Plan (2012-17), had assumed that the number of permitted TV channels would rise to 1500.