TN Govt To Move SC For DAS Licence To Arasu Cable TV

The Tamil Nadu government said on 22 April it will move the Supreme Court for obtaining Digital Addressable System (DAS) licence to the state-run Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation (TACTV), revived after AIADMK came to power in 2011.

Information Technology Minister Mukkur N Subramanian told the state Assembly that Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had taken up the matter twice with Centre, including writing to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December but to of no avail.

She had mentioned it at the National Development Council meeting also the same month.

"Despite that, Centre has not issued licence...I wish to inform that on the lines of the Cauvery issue, the Chief Minister will ensure the DAS licence (is received) by approaching the Supreme Court," he said.

TACTV's subscriber base had raised manifold from 4.94 lakh in 2011 to 61.54 lakh as on March 31, 2013 with over 24,000 operators. It was providing 90-100 channels and had 'procured' rights for 137 pay channels, he said.

The TACTV, originally launched in the previous DMK regime in the wake of a split in the ruling DMK's first family involving its chief M Karunanidhi and his grandnephews, Maran brothers, who are also into cable TV distribution, went defunct after they patched up later.

Jayalalithaa had vowed to revive it during the May 2011 elections to break the cable monopoly, hitherto held by Marans' Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV).

Among others, Subramanian said e-office software will be established at the State Data Centre here and willing government departments could use it from anywhere through cloud computing and that this move would help in paperless transactions.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2234-tn-govt-to-move-sc-for-das-licence-to-arasu-cable-tv.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2234-tn-govt-to-move-sc-for-das-licence-to-arasu-cable-tv.html