NEW DELHI: The Indian government is getting serious on tracking down illegal transmission of television channels. In an attempt to step up monitoring of the channels being downlinked to the viewers, all teleports operating in the country have been directed by the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry to submit every month the list of channels being uplinked by them.

The teleports have to report the details of the channels they uplink latest by the 15th of every month. The directive for all teleports comes into effect with immediate effect, and the first list of channels uplinked or downlinked has to be submitted by 15 January.

I&B Ministry sources told Indiantelevision.com that the monthly reporting to it will bring greater transparency and also help check uplinking of unlicensed or illegal channels.

A teleport or a telecommunications port is a satellite ground station connecting a satellite network with a terrestrial network.

According to the ministry directive, the teleports are to supply information about the name of the teleport operator, the STV licence number, the satellite being used, the names of all TV channels, names of the companies which own the TV channels, date of start of uplink, and current operational status.

The teleports were hitherto sending this information every month to the Network Operations Control Centre (NOCC) under the Communications ministry.

"It is less than a year that we started reporting to the NOCC. Now the I&B ministry also wants us to report to them. The government feels that this is a better way to filter out those unlicensed channels who get distributed in India. We have no problems providing such details," said a senior executive at Essel Shyam Communication, a leading teleport operator in India.