Grant Investrade Ltd (GIL), a subsidiary of Hinduja Ventures Ltd, has bagged the operating licence for the HITS (Headend-in-the-Sky) digital television services from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.

The company said this was the final regulatory step for it to commence operations of its HITS operations. HITS entails using a single headend to beam digitally compressed programming via satellite. In a statement, Tony D’ Silva, MD, Grant Investrade, said: “NXT DIGITAL has received an overwhelming response from the distribution fraternity in phase III & IV markets in India. Our broadcast centre and our backend systems are fully operational; our broadcaster relationships have been formalised… and we’re ready to go ‘live’ shortly.”

The deadline for the phase III stage of Digital Addressable System has been set at December 31.