Tuesday 29 January 2013

Manish Tewari And Uday Verma Shown Black Flags In BES Expo

Hundreds of LCOs barged into the conference Hall of BES Expo in Pragati Maidan wearing black arm bands  shouting slogans against the I&B Minister Manish Tewari and I&B secretary Uday Kumar Varma, when the Minister was addressing the audience during the inaugural ceremony of the exhibition and conference. The protest was staged against the unfair revenue share in DAS regime and neglect of the small cable operators.
Mr Tewari agreed to meet a delegation of Delhi-based Local Cable Operators (LCOs) on Wednesday, 30 January to hear their complaints with regard to the 'unreasonable' revenue sharing under the digital addressable system (DAS).

Tewari was heckled as he attempted to leave the venue after his inaugural address at the three-day conference of the Broadcast Engineers Society (BES). LCOs shouted “Manish Tewari Murdabad” and “Uday Verma Murdabad” which stunned thousands of delegates including exhibitors attending the inaugural ceremony.
A S Kohli, President of West Delhi Cable Operator Association who was also present in the protest, said that he had already met Mrs Ambika Soni, ex I&B Minister and TRAI Chairman earlier when the policy was being framed but no one cared for their concern.
Cable Operators Federation of India President Roop Sharma who will also meet the Minister tomorrow said that Ministry as well as TRAI is not ready to listen to any plea of the cable operators whereas they have framed all regulations and Tariff Order in a way that only a few stake holders who already enjoy vertical monopoly in the market get maximum advantage. “The Government has literally handed over the industry created by thousands of cable operators for the last 25 years to these big media houses and left the LCOs at their mercy”, said Roop Sharma.
LCOs had even blacked out many areas in the capital in parts recently to protest against the unfair dealing by the government but had failed to make the government react.
Roop Sharma said that consumers who wanted both pay and free-to-air channels under DAS regime would have to pay anything between Rs 250 to Rs 300 or even more against amounts ranging between Rs 80 to Rs 150 that they have been paying under analogue where as Ambika Soni had assured in the Parliament that consumers would benefit in DAS regime as they would pay only for the channels they watched.
LCOs all over the country have been complaining against the revenue share of 45:55 between LCOs and MSOs for the basic tier. They have also resented the fact that when there is no progress in digitalisation in Chennai and Kolkata, government is declaring a total success in the media gagging all the news of ground reality.
Another LCO Ashok Pandit said several representations have been made to both the ministry and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) about how the revenue sharing under DAS was unworkable but the Ministry is not ready to listen taking shelter of the amended Cable Act. The revenue sharing ratio is 55:45 between MSOs and LCOs in the basic service tier of Rs 100 for 100 free-to-air (FTA) channels, and of 65:35 in a mix of pay and FTA channels.
He pointed out that it was a cable operator who did the entire work of fitting the connections or climbing electricity poles to lay the cable TV wire and service the connection, collected the revenue for the MSO and the Broadcaster, collected the Tax for the government and upgraded the last mile network from time to time but he has been deprived of all the advantage of going digital. Furthermore, he said many subscribers in east Delhi were paying as low as Rs 75 despite the fact that some of them had more than one TV set in their homes, and would therefore refuse to pay more.
LCOs also pointed out that they have been asked to pay in cash for the STBs to MSOs without getting any receipts for the same and state government has sent notice to them for paying the sales Tax and VAT.

Source:
http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/1012-manish-tewari-and-uday-verma-shown-black-flags-in-bes-expo.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/1012-manish-tewari-and-uday-verma-shown-black-flags-in-bes-expo.html

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