The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has asked the central government to pass a legislation making it mandatory for conditional access set top boxes to be set up at the customer end to receive pay channels.

In a memorandum to I & B minister Sushma Swaraj, the NCTA has maintained that currently encrypted channels are decoded at the cable TV headend and are then distributed as free to air channels in the basic service. Having a CAS at the customer end would be an effective anti-piracy measure, as all locally originating content will have to pass through the CAS filter. According to the NCTA, Swaraj had, in a meeting on 30 August this year, agreed to pass an order making it mandatory for all encrypted channels to reach the willing and subscribing end customers only through a conditional access set top box.

The feature films screened through this mandatory CAS will generate huge revenues for the film industry, the NCTA has noted in its memorandum.