Govt going slow on blanking TV screens

Government is going slow on blanking out analogue cable TV screens as about 25 percent of 1.6 crore households missed the deadline of switching over over to digitised cable television yesterday.
However, top government sources said that only a little more than a lakh of screens could have gone blank with the expiry of the deadline because the government does not not want to wield the stick immediately.
"In order not to create inconvenience for the people, we are giving a transition time of 10 to 15 days depending on the ground-level situation," Information and Broadcasting Secretary Uday Kumar Varma told PTI.

He, however, added that there was no question of the deadline being extended by the government.
With the deadline for the second phase of digitisation having passed yesterday, nearly 25 percent TV viewing homes still have not installed Set Top Boxes (STBs) in 38 cities that were to be covered.
As per the ministry's data, 1.6 crore cable TV houses had to be digitised by April 1.

Officials said that Multi System Operators (MSOs) and broadcasters have been told to switch off the signals in a phased manner and depending on the situation in various cities.
They said there is a huge diversity in the ground situation in various cities which the ministry would keep in mind while enforcing black outs.

As per data with the ministry, seven of the 38 selected cities--Ludhiana, Hyderabad, Faridabad, Allahabad, Amritsar, Chandigarh and Jodhpur--have reported 100 percent digitisation while Thane, Meerut and Jaipur have reported over 90 per cent compliance.