Assam Cable Operators unite to fight for their Right

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Assam Cable Operators unite to fight for their Right

A meeting of representatives of Cable TV Operators from various districts of Assam was held on, 29/6/14 at Kalaguru Sangeet Mahavidyalay, Lalmati Tezpur from 10.30 am onwards. The meeting was primarily held to discuss about preparation for migrating from analogue to digital.

The Sonitpur District Cable TV Operators Association was also formed with 15 member committee, headed by Sri Arup Bora as its President & Sri Biswajit Goswami as its General Secretary.

Operators discuss various issues regarding mandatory implementation of digital addressable system (DAS) in the country.

It was opined that the Cable TV Act specified a group ‘A’ officer like a sub-divisional magistrates, or Commissioner of Police as Authorized Officer for local jurisdiction or implementation of the Act at local level, vehement violation of the rules concerning consumers & operators are occurring due to lack of monitoring by the local Government. Consumers are unaware of their rights & always blame the local operators for their problems. Even the Nodal Officers are ineffective.

The meeting formed a 10 member State level adhoc committee with representative from every district and promised to form a full-fledged state level committee of cable operators by convening a meeting of LCOs of entire Assam in Guwahati within 30 days.

The committee will present a memo to the State Government with demand to implement the provisions of TRAI Regulation & the Cable TV Act at the local level and urge for constituting a task force for smooth implementation of DAS. Among various demands and actions operators listed out for the future the following were included:

DAS license should be applied and granted online. License fee amount should be reduced to 1000/-.
End customer ownership to remain with LCO.
Revenue Share model of CAS (Conditional Access) should also be implemented.
Regulation should be brought for OTT services, IPTV services by Cable Operators, Time Shift TV Services.
Broadcasters of Pay TV channels and news channels should be brought under audit by CAG.
Subsidized discounted rates should be granted for consumers by pay channels.