(UPDATED 20 June 2012 9:26 pm)
(20 June 2012 7:15 pm)

NEW DELHI: Bowing to pressure from the local cable operators, multi-system operators and some state governments, the Government today decide to defer the date of cable digital addressable systems (DAS) to 1 November in the first phase covering four metros.

The four-month delay from the earlier deadline of 1 July was announced today even as matters are pending before the Mumbai and Delhi High Courts and Tdsat. This will also satisfy the West Bengal government as chief minister Mamata Banerjee was pressing for digitisation in Kolkata after the Dusshera Pujas.

The official statement said: "The assessment of the ground realities compels the I&B Ministry to set a new deadline. It is, however, imperative that the modified target deadline is set with strict benchmarks to ensure that no complacency sets-in in the system and the new target date is achieved collectively by all the stakeholders."

"Therefore, keeping in view public interest and after intensive and extensive consultations as well as written commitments from all the stakeholders for fully implementing the regulations of Trai", the Ministry said it had decided to modify the deadline to 31 October in all four metro cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

Under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2011, it had been mandated that the switchover of the existing analogue Cable TV networks to DAS by December 2014, in a phased manner. In respect of four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, the digital switchover was mandated to come into effect from 1 July 2012.

The Government admitted in its order that the orders of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Tariff & Interconnection, and on the Quality of Service Regulations and the Consumer Complaint Redressal Regulations had not yet been substantially implemented.

As a result of this, the installation of set-top boxes had not picked up necessary pace for the completion of the process of digitisation by 30 June 2012.

The Task Force comprising all stakeholders constituted by the Ministry in April 2011 had been monitoring the progress made by various stakeholders towards digitisation. The task force has also undertaken field visits and interacted with local stakeholders. Discussions have been regularly held with broadcasters, multi-system operators (MSOs) and local cable operators (LCOs), while the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had been in regular contact with the concerned State Governments on this issue.