New Delhi, Jul 09: With CAS keeping it on its toes, government it 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 today.
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 the government's unhappiness over the broadcasters speaking in a different voice after entering an agreement last week at the PMO on CAS.
The government announced that as per the agreement, all channels would be made available for Rs 72 plus taxes from august one in the four metros till a zone gets notified for CAS, but the broadcasters later said they had agreed to giving only a month's "honeymoon" time to each zone.
Under the Act as of now, only the cable operators can be punished for violations and not the broadcasters.
Faced with political pressure to ensure the consumer does not have to shell out more money when CAS rolls out, the government is also not satisfied with the pay channel rates quoted by broadcasters.
Bureau Report
