Analogue Switch Off Delayed Till 8 May In Madhya Pradesh � High Court

Today, cable operators of Madhya Pradesh got a relief from the High Court as the court after accepting their petition has stayed the Analogue switch off till 8th May.  They were total five cases filed in the High Court which were clubbed together and include 2 cases from consumer bodies and one case from Digicable MSO.

This is the fourth case in progress now. Two more cases, one in J&K and one in Lucknow High Court are expected to be filed in this week against the unreasonable regulations for implementing DAS framed by the Government.

Another three cases, one in Karnataka, one in Gujarat High Court and one in Andhra High Court are in progress and will be heard tomorrow on 16th April 2013. These cases have also being filed by Cable Operators Associations of these states against analogue switch off requesting for an extension of the deadline due to shortage of STBs and impractical and unfair regulations made by TRAI.

The deadline for the 2nd phase has already passes on 31st March 2013 and I&B Ministry did not agree to extend it further claiming that 85 percent of success has already been achieved in 38 cities of Phase-2 in seeding the STBs and many cities have reached 100% penetration. However, according to cable operators most of the cities have not achieved more than 40 percent of seeding. They say that the Ministry to save its face is adding the STBs of DTH in Cable TV figures giving an impression that so many households have already been digitized.

According to Roop Sharma, COFI President, the new law that amended the Cable TV Act in 2011, was made for digitization of Cable TV and not TV households. If Government wanted to digitize all the TV households, it should have taken all the 155 million TV households in the country as the base which included terrestrial TV households which are still analogue, DD Direct Plus DTH of Doordarshan which is digital but not addressable, DTH households and IPTV households.

The existing regulations are meant only for migration of Cable TV to digital technology because DTH is already digital since 2004 when it was introduced, added Mrs. Sharma.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2115-analogue-switch-off-delayed-till-8-may-in-madhya-pradesh-%EF%BF%BD-high-court.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/2115-analogue-switch-off-delayed-till-8-may-in-madhya-pradesh-%EF%BF%BD-high-court.html