To promote indigenous manufacture of STBs, Department of Telecommunication (DOT) confirmed that set top boxes (STBs) are a part of telecommunication equipments so that their component import for manufacturing is exempt from duties.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar had earlier said that his ministry was taking this step because in the first two phases of digitalization there was hardly any local manufactured STBs installed. On 17 July 2014 Javadekar informed the Lok Sabha that this was done after his ministry along with other ministries had taken up the constraints of Indian manufacturers in the production of indigenous STBs, in view of the fact that an estimated 110 million STBs would be required for the third and fourth phase of digital access system (DAS).
While the UPA government had introduced digitisation in the country, it failed to chalk out a clear path for it, especially for boosting indigenous production of STBs. The new government had assured all the players that it would look at every sector’s problems and work on them. This thrust to indigenous STB manufacture seems to be a step forward in that direction.
Javadekar also said that a task force has been set up to finalise the modalities and study the implementation of the last two phases of DAS which need to be completed by 31 December 2014. A Deloitte report prepared for ASSOCHAM recently said about 12 million STBs have been seeded and 80 per cent consumer application forms received as of December 2013. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) claims 100 per cent digitisation has taken place in the second phase of DAS.
TRAI has also said that recommendations on the new direct to home (DTH) licences would be brought out very soon. HITS licences have been issued to two players and are expected to enable digitisation in Phase III and Phase IV markets.
According to Mrs Roop Sharma, COFI President, Ministry has been receiving number of complaints regarding poor quality of STBs and inflated subscriptions. People in the city are complaining about digital STBs installed in their residences and commercial organisations. Neither the picture quality is good nor the service. MSOs switchoff channels from time to time and packages are changed without any notice leaving consumers unhappy.
Mrs Sharma further stated that TRAI made MSOs seed the STBs in a haste to achieve completion by the fixed deadlines. Since STBs are not manufactured in the country in large quantity, most of them were imported using more than 3000 crores of foreign exchange irrespective of their quality. No one cared to get the consumer Acquisition form (CAF) filled before installation of the device which was the procedure as per TRAI regulations. The purpose behind mandating DAS was to identify the actual number of cable viewers in the country and to provide them their choice. But with most consumers not filling in the form, the purpose still remains defeated.
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/cable-news/item/5516-cq-stbs-considered-as-telecom-equipment-to-boost-indigenous-production-javadekar.html
No comments:
Post a Comment