Govt may agree to zone-wise CAS rollout in Delhi, Mumbai
By Our Economy Bureau | 04 Jul 2003
New Delhi: The Indian government is likely to agree to the recommendation of a zone-wise implementation of CAS that was made by multi-system operators (MSOs) and cable operators.
According to their proposal, to begin with CAS may be introduced zone-wise in Delhi and Mumbai from 15 July. Delhi has been divided into four zones with CAS being introduced in the south zone first, while Mumbai has been divided into three zones with CAS being implemented in the southern part of the city first.
In the cases of Chennai and Kolkata, CAS will come into play from 15 July. This suggestion by MSOs was conveyed to the government to ensure that there is no blackout of channels after the implementation of CAS.
"We [MSOs] have reached a consensus on zone-wise implementation and have earmarked the first roll out in southern Delhi and south Mumbai as far as these two cities are concerned," Rajiv Vyas of Hinduja TMT told newspersons after a meeting with officials of the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry. Representatives from SitiCable and Hathway were also present at the meeting.
Officials in the I&B ministry acknowledged that this proposal seemed to be feasible as other options such as dual feed and genre-wise tiering of channels have been more or less ruled out. If the government decides to go ahead with the zone-wise rollout, then a series of notifications will have to be issued for different areas.