Chennai: The Centre has issued provisional Digital Addressable System (DAS) licence to the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation Ltd (TACTV). An order to this effect was issued by Information and Broadcasting Ministry on Monday, an official release said.
It is for the first time that a state government-run cable TV has been issued DAS licence. This will enable TACTV to deliver digital cable channels at low cost, the release from said.
Arasu TV, which began operations in October 2007, now offers 90-100 channels through local cable operators across the state. From 4.94 lakh subscribers in September 2011, the number has increased to 70.52 lakh, the release said.
Apparently, the DAS license for Arasu Cable TV was issued on 17th April with a mandate to switch all the Analog signals in to Digital Signals with in a period of three months.
The development comes after the Madras High courts direction to Information and Broadcasting ministry asking them to consider / decide on the application of Arasu Cable TV’s application for DAS license that was pending before the ministry since the previous UPA II government.
Tamil Nadu was the only state that witnessed poor implementation of Cable TV Digitization process despite the end of the deadline on 31st March 2017,due to the pending court case and subsequent stay order issued by the Madras HC.
The move is expected to prompt Arasu Cable to kick start the rolling out the digitization process in Tamil Nadu. However, the Provisional DAS licence was issued with a rider that the ministry can revoke the same based on the outcome of the decision of Inter Ministerial Comities decision on TRAI’s recommendations.
