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Emerging
from the meeting, Varma told newspersons that there was a
free and frank discussion of all the issues. He also said
the Ministry had heard the viewpoints of all stakeholders,
and was in touch with state governments.
It
is understood that while the cable operators wanted an extension
until December this year, some of the MSOs were agreeable
to an extension up to September, citing the shortage of digital
set top boxes and the late issuance of the tariff regulations
by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Some
cable operators said that failure to switch to digitisation
by 1 July may lead to law and order problems.
Varma
said Mumbai was better placed than the other metros to launch
digitisation. He said the Government now had a clearer position
of the readiness of various stakeholders.
Today's
meeting was a follow-up of a meeting between stakeholders
from different parts of India and I&B Minister Ambika
Soni ended with the Government not agreeing to defer the first
phase of digitisation in the metros.
The
Government had distributed a questionnaire to the stakeholders
wanting to know the status of progress in terms of number
of set top boxes distributed, agreements signed and so on.
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