(31 December 2008 7:00 pm)

NEW DELHI: Even as the Government turned down its request for enlarging the scope of the existing district level monitoring committees to monitor the proposed Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today extended the last date for comments from stakeholders on its consultation paper on "Quality of Service issues for Cable TV Services in non-Cas areas and for DTH Services" until 10 January.

Prior to this extension, stakeholders were supposed to submit their feedback by 31 December 2008.

Earlier on 1 December 2008, Trai had issued the consultation paper on ‘Quality of service issues for Cable TV services in non-Cas areas and for DTH services.'

For direct-to-home (DTH) services, Trai had sought opinion on QoS issues pertaining to dropping of channels by the service providers, maintenance and visiting charges, and protection to subscribers regarding their tariff plans.

In the paper, Trai had also written to various state governments for effective monitoring and enforcement of quality of service parameters, once the regulations are issued for non-Cas areas, noting that the enforcement of the proposed regulations is a challenging task.

Meanwhile, information and broadcasting ministry sources confirmed to indiantelevision.com that Trai, which had made the recommendation in a letter sent late last month, was informed in a reply that the committees had been set up for a certain purpose and could not take up the work of monitoring QoS of operators.

In a letter to Trai chairman Nripendra Misra, Ministry secretary Sushma Singh said the monitoring committees were constituted "with a view to monitor the content shown on private TV channels," and it would not be advisable "to enlarge the scope of the committees."

"Even if the scope of the district monitoring committees were to be enlarged to receive complaints as suggested by you, there is nothng much which n authorised officer of the committee can do by way of penalising a cable operator if he does not redress the grievance or comply with the regulations," Singh has told Misra.