Cabinet nod for 100% FDI in DTH services, license to be now issued for 20 years

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the revision in guidelines for providing direct to home (DTH) services in the country under which licenses would be issued for 20 years. Currently, the licence is valid for 10 years for DTH players.

Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the change in guidelines would also allow 100 per cent FDI in the DTH sector. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) was consulted in this regard, he added.

While the Commerce Ministry had spoken of 100 per cent FDI in the DTH sector, the guidelines of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry needed to be changed. Till now, the FDI was limited to 49 per cent.

According to a report by Trai, the DTH industry has an active subscriber base of 72.44 million paying customers in the quarter ended March 31. This was in addition to free DTH services of public broadcaster Doordarshan.

Tata Sky with a share of 32.33 per cent was leading in the segment, followed by DishTV with 29.49 per cent. Bharti Telemedia has 23.65 per cent and Sun Direct TV has 14.53 per cent.