With less than a month to go for the March 31 deadline for the second phase of the pan-India digitisation plan, more than half of the homes across 38 cities have now installed a digital set top box (STB), according to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
“The 55 per cent digitisation target has been achieved in 38 cities that are set for digitisation by March 31,” a press release said.
According to data collected from direct-to-home (DTH) operators, a total of 87.7 lakh STBs had already been in Phase –II cities as of February 22. This is against the target of 1.60 crore STBs the Ministry had set.
“Out of a total of 87.7 lakh STBs, DTH connections accounted for 40.7 lakh and cable STBs accounted for 46 lakh,” the release said.
Task force
A task force had been set up exclusively for Phase-II cities, by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, to oversee the digitisation process.
Provisional registrations had also been issued to 30 independent multisystem operators in a bid to speed up the process of cable TV digitisation.