With controversy over the implementaion of conditional access system raging on, the government is now considering a proposal to amend the Cable Act to regulate broadcasters.
The proposal was mooted at a meeting convened by Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani recently, highly placed sources said on Wednesday.
They said it has now been left to the information and broadcasting ministry to chalk out the details of the proposed amendment. The meeting was attended among others by Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Law Minister Arun Jaitley.
The move apparently follows government's unhappiness over the broadcasters' stand that they had agreed to give only a month's "honeymoon" time to each zone and not what the government claims.
The government had announced that as per the agreement, all channels would be made available for Rs 72 plus taxes from August 1 in the four metros "till a zone gets notified for CAS".
Under the Act as of now, only the cable operators and not broadcasters can be punished for violations.
Sources also point out that the government is also not satisfied with the pay channel rates quoted by the broadcasters.
