The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill seeking to provide cable TV subscribers with a minimum number of free-to-air channels at a reasonable cost while empowering the government to install addressable systems for viewing pay channels.
The Lok Sabha had already passed the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2002.
Allaying members' fears that the government wants to regulate content being shown on television through this bill, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj said, "I am unhappy that the body being proposed for content regulation is stuck because of the delay in passing the Convergence Bill."
Also, government has no intention of specifying the channels to be aired under the bill, she said.
She said this bill would be subsumed into the Convergence Bill once the latter is passed.
The minister said through the bill the government will decide the maximum amount that free-to-air channels can charge from a subscriber, but subscription of pay channels will be left to the broadcasters.
Swaraj said the government has sought only three rights through this bill -- determining the number of basic players, the genre of programming to be shown and the amount.
On whether the common man can afford set-top-boxes, the minister said as per estimates by the Consumer Electronics and TV Manufacturers Association, while 100,000 such boxes will cost Rs 2,500 each, 1 million of them will cost only Rs 1,500 each. The country is estimated to have over 3.5 crore cable households, she added.
"We all know that initially the cost of such products is indeed high, but as demand grows, they become very affordable. Take the case of cell phones... I believe set-top boxes will soon become affordable," Swaraj said.
No particular technology has been mandated for use of this system -- either analog or digital can be used -- as per the provisions of this bill, she added.
Also, the Bureau for Indian Standards has specified standards for both these types of technologies.
Addressing members' concern that channels like MTV and FTV were beaming programmes unsuited to Indian sensibilities, she said the bill will address the problem effectively by providing regulation by choice.
