Prasar Bharti holds e-auction of slots for its DTH platform DD Direct Plus

Prasar Bharti today said it had conducted an e-auction for available slots on its DTH platform to select the channels to be aired on government-controlled DD Direct Plus.

The DD Direct Plus bouquet, currently has 59 channels of which 19 are Doordarshan's own channels including the channel Lok Sabha

"Conducted through an e-tender process, the entire mechanism was facilitated by M/s NCDEX Spot Mumbai, the agency selected for conducting the proceedings," Prasr Bharti said in a statement.

Prior to conducting the e-auction, Doordarshan undertook a detailed exercise to fine-tune the mechanism to suit professional requirements. It invited all the channels who had applied to be placed on the DD Direct Plus DTH platform and also the existing channels on DD Direct Plus platform that had completed their annual agreements upto 30 June 2011.

The statement said, "All bidders were asked to submit a bank guarantee of Rs1.5 crore within 15 days of the issuance of the letter. Open public Notices were issued in leading national newspapers on an all India level. Thirty seven channels applied with a bank guarantee of Rs1.5 crore and necessary downlinking / uplinking permissions from Ministry of I & B . Out of the 37 channels, 32 participated in the final e-auction process."

According to Prasar Bharti, it conducted a series of mock auctions  to familiarise the bidding channels with the bidding process. The channels were issued an individual ID and password to enable them to log onto the website to participate in the closed e-auction process using their unique digital signatures.