The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa, has requested the Prime Minister to issue the Digital Addressable System licence to the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation Ltd (TACTV), without any further loss of time.

In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, she has pointed out TACTV has promptly applied to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for the Digital Addressable System licence in 2012, for operating in the Chennai Metro Area and in the rest of Tamil Nadu. In preparation for commencing digital operations, even orders were placed for the supply of Set Top Boxes, Conditional Access System and Subscriber Management System and erection of Head End at a cost of about Rs 50 crore.

Even as TACTV’s applications for licences were kept pending by the previous UPA Government, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued licences to nine other Multi System Operators in Tamil Nadu, including those who applied after TACTV.

“In order to take up this issue strongly, on my directions, delegations of Members of Parliament from Tamil Nadu repeatedly met the then Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and even the former Prime Minister to request the speedy issue of licences since the digitisation had to be completed within a time frame. It was pointed out that delay in grant of licenses would give others a head start in the market,” she has mentioned in the letter.

TACTV is providing Cable TV services in 31 of the 32 Districts of Tamil Nadu since 2.9.2011. In Chennai services were commenced subsequently. As a service provider targeting the middle class and poor customers, TACTV provides a package of 100 channels to subscribers at a cost of Rs 70 a month, the lowest rate anywhere in the country. Public response has been overwhelming with a rapid ramp up of the subscriber base which has reached nearly 24,000 Local Cable Operators with 65 lakh individual subscribers. This has made TACTV the single largest multi-system operator in India.

Jayalalithaa also pointed out that The Madurai Bench of the Hon’ble High Court of Madras had also passed orders in a Writ Petition pending before it, as early as on December 6, 2012, that the process of issue of licence to Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation may go on and the licence may also be issued. I had also written to the then Prime Minister of India to direct the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to issue the DAS licence to TACTV.

Despite all these efforts, the Digital Addressable System license is yet to be issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. It is learnt that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had constituted an Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC) on January 3, 2013 to look into the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the licensing issue and the Committee has still not submitted its final report.

“This is an issue on which I am keenly expecting an early decision from your Government in view of the clear legal position and the strong merits of the case. This would enable the Government of Tamil Nadu to adhere to its commitment to provide inexpensive and quality Cable TV services to the people of Tamil Nadu, particularly the poor and the middle class,” she has said.

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