Cable TV digitisation going at snail’s pace in Kashmir

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, February 3

The much-touted cable TV digitisation is moving at a snail’s pace in Kashmir where a majority of the areas are still to be covered under the drive. The operators still prefer analog system over digital set-top boxes.

In major towns across Kashmir, including Srinagar city, the cable operators have failed to meet the deadline to switch over to digital operations, which was aimed at making available enhanced picture and sound quality, a large number of channels and value-added services.

What is worrying is that the consumers are being charged for digital services by the cable operators, who are deceiving the state as well as the masses.

As per an estimate, there are approximately 800 operators in J&K running the cable operations with an approximate base of 4 lakh subscribes, but the state authorities still don’t have the authentic data to analyse the viewership patterns in the absence of digitisation.

In most of the areas, sources within the industry reveal, the cable operators have issued digital receivers to the consumers, which are not set-top boxes as was envisaged when the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting launched an extended campaign in 2012 in a phased manner.

“The cable operator took Rs 1,500 from me saying I will be issued a digital set-top box. Later, it turned out to be adigital receiver. I still receive unwanted channels from the operator,” said Zameer Malik, a Sopore resident.

To oversee the progress of cable TV digitisation in J&K, the government constituted a five-member state-level monitoring committee headed by information director in March 2017.

However, despite the extension of deadlines, the digitisation of cable TV remains a distant dream in Kashmir.

“Only a small number of cable operators have gone for digitisation while the rest are running their operations on analog system,” said a cable operator from south Kashmir, who has already digitised his operations. He said we had also appealed to the Governor’s administration to take up the matter with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting so that the digitisation of the sector was completed in J&K.