Jayalalithaa turns up the heat, wants licence for state-owned cable to counter Sun TV now
5 Jun 2014 11:54 PM GMT
In a letter on Thursday to information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar, the AIADMK chief raised this issue, which she had also brought up earlier in her discussion with Modi. The chief minister in the letter clearly mentioned that after assuming office in May, 2011, she ‘revived the moribund Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation (TACTV), a government of Tamil Nadu public sector undertaking.’ TACTV was set up by Jayalalitha during her previous tenure to counter the influence of Sun TV, founded by Tamil Nadu CM’s bitter rival Murasoli Maran and after his death run by his sons Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran. Â
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The letter states that delegations of MPs from the state had met the former information and broadcasting minister as well the former prime minister ‘requesting the expeditious issue of licenses as digitisation has to be completed within a time frame.’ She stated, ‘I strongly suspect that the non-issuance of the DAS license to TACTV by the previous UPA Government was only to facilitate particular private business interests, as other licenses were issued at the same time.’
‘In these circumstances, I would be grateful if you could kindly have this matter reviewed at the earliest and arrange to issue the ‘Digital Addressable System’ license to the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation Ltd without any further loss of time so that the people of Tamil Nadu, particularly the poor and the middle class, continue to avail of inexpensive and quality Cable TV services,’ added Jayalalithaa.
The central government  issued a CAS license to TACTV for Chennai on 02.04.2008 and TACTV is now transmitting signals in Digital Mode using the CAS license in Chennai Metro Area as well.  The government subsequently amended the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, and modified the ‘Conditional Access System’ area to ‘Digital Addressable System’ (DAS) area. TACTV had  applied to the ministry of information and broadcasting for the Digital Addressable System license on 05.07.2012 for operating in the Chennai Metro Area and on 23.11.2012 for operating in the rest of Tamil Nadu. Turn to PG7
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