NEW DELHI: The Central government will be keeping a close watch on cable operators especially in border areas to check whether channels operating from Pakistan and China are available on their networks. To scrutinize output feed, the Government has decided to install a ‘monitoring device’ on their head-ends.
A head-end is an appliance that receives TV signals as input from satellites and processes them into cable-quality signals for distribution among homes and cable networks.
Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL), a government enterprise, which provides technical input and consultancy to the ministry of information and broadcasting, will soon start installing the devices.
The officials, in the know of the matter, said that monitoring of transmission would be done in a ‘non-intrusive manner’. “It (monitoring and installation of devices) is more of a strategic issue. Complaints were coming mainly from border areas about unauthorised transmission of Pakistan and China origin,” said officials.
An advisory was issued to the cable operators by the ministry on Tuesday to inform them about the decision for output feed monitoring through a monitoring device.
“The monitoring devices are to be installed on the Head-end of the Cable Operators, under the provision of Sub-Section 4 of Section 10A of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995,” it reads.
The ministry has also advised the cable operators to cooperate with officials or a team of BECIL visiting their premises for the installation of monitoring devices. They have also been asked to furnish the requisite information regarding head-end locations and other technical details of their networks and systems when sought by the visiting team.
In case of non-cooperation, punitive action may be initiated, cautioned the ministry. “Any non-cooperation will be viewed as a violation of subsection 4 of Section 10A of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995. Such violations may invite action as per the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and Rules made thereunder,” states the advisory issued by the ministry.
However, it has not been clarified till when the monitoring will continue. “It will be for a time period but the cut-off date has not been decided yet,” officials informed.