MUMBAI: The All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) has submitted a letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), as per the judgement of the Kerala High Court, stating that it is collating information from member companies to make a detailed submission on the amended new tariff order (NTO 2.0), requesting TRAI not to take any further action.
AIDCF secretary general Manoj Chhangani said it has informed TRAI that the federation would be sending the detailed representation in the next two weeks.
The federation filed a writ petition in the Kerala High Court against certain provisions of NTO 2.0 regarding logical channel number, network capacity fee (NCF), multi-TV home connection. The high court has stayed the clause relating to placing of channels on Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) in NTO 2.0. In the amended order, the authority had mandated that the channel of a language in a genre will be kept together while placing channels on EPG. Such EPG layout is to be mandatorily reported to the TRAI and no change in this can be done without prior approval of the authority.
“In the above view of the matter, the amended provision in Regulation 18(4) of the Principal Regulation 2017 shall stand stayed. With regard to the other impugned provisions, the petitioners are permitted to file a detailed representation before the TRAI pointing out the objections to the amendments producing all relevant data which will be duly considered by the TRAI and appropriate remedial steps shall be taken after due consultation with all stakeholders as required by law. Till such time, the provisions except the provision with regard to freezing of the placement of channels in perpetuity shall be permitted to be operated,” the judgement said.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Cable Operators Federation (MCOF) requested TRAI yesterday to defer the implementation of the amended tariff order (NTO 2.0) in view of the crisis created by Coronavirus. MCOF president Arvind Prabhu said that they are awaiting response from the regulatory body.
