SSI status sought for cable TV

Post-Hudhud, both MSOs and cable operators find the going tough in meeting the combined loss of Rs. 100 crore. The cyclone had caused extensive damage to the cables laid by the operators and dish antennae and other installations of MSOs.

After multi-system operators signed an agreement with Power Grid for using their underground ducts at various hubs for transmission of signals, 90 per cent cable TV connections have been restored in Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and East Godavari district.

The cable operators not only restored TV telecast but also replaced set-top boxes to poorest of the poor living in slums free as they had lost everything in the aftermath of cyclone Hudhud.

The cyclone had caused extensive damage to the cables laid by the operators and dish antennae and other installations of MSOs. The four districts have 20 lakh subscribers and 3,000 cable operators, 800 of them in the city. Of an estimated 82,000 direct to home connections, 42,000 lost signals due to damaged dish antennae.

Power Grid hubs are now used at Gajuwaka, Pendurthy and NAD as underground ducts are well protected. Earlier, cable operators had a total wire length of 3,500 km.

Now the operators have to pay rental for using the underground ducts at the rate of Rs.30,000 per month per km.

Huge burden

The operators and MSOs put the loss due to cyclone to them at Rs.100 crore. “We don’t have any insurance. So it is a huge blow for all of us,” a multi-system operator said.

“Each operator has to spend Rs.500 per connection. Hence, we are appealing to the State Government to give us an ex gratia of Rs 300 per connection and a loan of Rs.1 lakh to overcome the loss incurred,” Seemandhra Cable Operators’ Welfare Association president Pakki Diwakar told The Hindu .

Cable business is not treated as a small-scale industry. Representatives from this field have sought recognition as small-scale industry so as to get easy finance.

Now the problem is that broadcasters are raising the bill to the MSOs. The MSOs on the other hand are asking the cable operators to pay their dues. “What we want is that the government should ask the broadcasters like Star and Zee to waive rental in the region for sometime going by the magnitude of devastation caused by Hudhud,” M.V. Somasekhar, a cable operator, said.