New Delhi: The deadline set by the government for Cable TV digitisation in 38 cities across 14 states ends on Monday. Television sets without set top boxes would go blank. These cities are part of the second phase of digitisation as government claimed 67 per cent digitisation had been achieved in these places.
The UP government had on Saturday written to the Ministry seeking extension of digitisation deadline. Officials in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said digitisation would be implemented in these cities barring Bangalore and four towns in Gujarat where the deadline was being extended following court orders.
These cities include are Agra, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Howrah, Hyderabad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Meerut, Mysore, Nagpur, Nasik, Navi Mumbai, Patna, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Rajkot, Ranchi, Sholapur, Srinagar, Surat, Thane, Vadodara, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam.
According to the I&B Ministry's recent data, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Chandigarh and Allahabad have achieved nearly 100 per cent digitisation while over 75 per cent digitisation had been achieved in Jodhpur, Thane, Aurangabad, Jaipur, Pune,
Faridabad, Nashik, and Ghaziabad.
While in some cities installation of STBs was less than desired, official sources said they expected the figure to improve as it was observed during the first phase of digitisation. Following the implementation of the second phase of digitisation, the I&B Ministry would now focus on the third phase.
The third phase of digitisation has to be implemented in all other urban areas (municipal corporations/ municipalities) except cities or towns or areas included in the Phase I and II by September 30, 2014. Under Phase IV, the digitisation process will cover rest of the country by end of 2014.
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