Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa, alleging the previous UPA government facilitated the interests of private cable operators, Thursday urged the NDA central government to permit the state government company to offer cable services here.In a letter to union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar, the text of which was released to the media here, Jayalalithaa said: "I strongly suspect that the non-issuance of the DAS (direct addressable system) 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."
She said as per the provisions of the Cable TV Network (Regulations) Act, 1995, and Rules thereof, a person or an association of inpiduals or a company registered under the Companies Act is entitled to get the DAS license, and the the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation Ltd (TACTV) is fully qualified to be issued the license.According to her, TACTV commenced its cable TV services in all the 31 districts of the state Sep 2, 2011 barring Chennai, which was a conditional access system area at that point of time.The company provides 100 channels to subscribers at a cost of Rs.70/- per month."There has been an overwhelming response from the public and nearly 24,000 local cable TV operators with a subscriber base of 65 lakhs avail of the services of TACTV," she said.Jayalalithaa said TACTV has taken all necessary steps to commence operations in the digital mode in Chennai and has placed orders for the supply of set top boxes, conditional access system and subscriber management system and erection of head end at a cost of about Rs. 50 crore.