SHILLONG: The Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Manoj Kumar Pingua on Thursday lamented that there was a lack of awareness among stakeholders, consumers and officers about the Cable TV digitization.
Speaking to media persons after a workshop with nodal officers and Multi System Operators of North Eastern States, Manoj Kumar Pingua also rued that seeding of set-top box in some of the states is not up to the mark and the ministry had asked the states to complete the process at the earliest.
“After the expiry of the cut-off date of the cable TV digitization, no signal can be transmitted or re-transmitted unless it is encrypted and digitize,” he said.
While pointing out that ditigization of cable TV is the first step, the official added that many more initiatives including online grievances redressal system and Subscriber Management System would be put in place soon.
Asked about the deadline for the cable operators to shift over to digital mode, he said that the deadline for switching over was already over.
He, however, said that it was the call of local authorities on how much time they wanted to give to the defaulters and responsibility of taking action against defaulters lied with the local authorised officers.
“The District Magistrates, ADMS and police are empowered under the law to take action but since there was lack of awareness, so the action was delayed but now it is their call as when they want to act against the defaulters,” he said.
According to Pingua, seeding percent has shown sharp rise in recent past since people on many occasion are not filling their data online but with the workshop, the Ministry is hoping that the stakeholders will be aware about the entire digitization.
The workshop for all stakeholders was organised to spread awareness on the need to provide
only digitally encrypted signals.
Advisor to Cable TV digitization, Yogendra Pal and other stakeholders from different parts of the North Eastern States were present in the workshop.
Earlier, while addressing a meeting with the nodal officers and MSOs of Northeastern States on Cable TV digitization, he said despite the deadline, there were still some gaps in terms of putting the cable TV network on the digital platform in the eight Northeastern States.
Looking at the seeding status of set top box in Northeastern states, he said that both Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh had managed to achieve a target of 144 per cent. The figures for others states of the region are – Assam with 94 per cent, Manipur with 29 per cent, Meghalaya with 69 per cent, Mizoram with 80 per cent, Nagaland with 105 per cent and Tripura with 49 per cent.
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