The tough message was given to the Broadcasters, MSOs and the cable operators at a review meeting convened by the regulator to assess the compliance of regulations in CAS notified areas.
NEW DELHI: Taking a serious note of non- compliance of regulations, telecom and broadcast regulator TRAI on Wednesday warned broadcasters, MSOs, cable operators and subscribers of consequences if they fell out of line.
"Period of no condonation has started from July 1 and all the stakeholders have been clarified that henceforth any non-compliance to the regulations of TRAI be it quality, pricing among others, would be viewed very seriously," TRAI Chairman Nripendra Misra told.
Asked whether TRAI noticed any non-compliance from the broadcasters or the cable operators, Misra said: "Yes. There were complaints about switching over to analogue technology in the late night and also there were billing related problems."
According to latest estimates, over 5.50 lakh Set-Top Boxes have been installed in the three metros ever since Conditional Access System (CAS) came into effect from January 1, this year.
Mumbai has seen the most organised growth followed by Delhi and Kolkata. Reason for slow growth in Kolkata was that most of the Bengali channels come under Free-To-Air (FTA) segment.
The tough message was given to the Broadcasters, MSOs and the cable operators at a review meeting convened by the regulator to assess the compliance of regulations in CAS notified areas.
"Now six months have passed. One can imagine the teething problems in the first few months.. But it cannot go on like this," he said.
Misra said the authorised officers of the states have also been clarified about TRAI's plans to deal with non-compliance strictly and inform any deviation by the operators or distributors to the regulator.
TRAI has been holding review meetings with the MSOs from time to time to ensure that there was no deviation from the rules.
TRAI has also decided to visit the households from where complaints originated and may also conduct random checks at the MSOs' premises to ensure compliance.
When contacted, Roop Sharma, President of Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI), said that there were problems from the middlemen operating between MSOs and cable operators.
The agents or the so-called distributors have not been able to get the forms filled from the subscribers about channels being subscribed by them, based on which the MSOs would pay to broadcasters.
"TRAI is absolutely right. Compliance is lacking in the CAS notified areas," Sharma said.
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