Sun Direct to add remaining DD channels within 72 hours

MUMBAI: A week after notices were sent by the
ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) to
three DTH operators for not carrying the
mandatory 24 Doordarshan channels, one of the
three has decided that it will be adding the
remaining six channels to its packages within the
next 72 hours.
“Even before the notice was issued, we had
initiated a technical upgrade that will facilitate to
add more channels on the same transponder. We
took steps nearly three months ago to import
equipments and to upgrade our software,” says
Sun Direct CEO Mahesh Kumar.
As far as the reply to the MIB notice is concerned
Kumar says that he will be writing to the ministry
post the addition stating that it is complying with
the rules. He also mentioned that currently Sun
Direct is carrying 18 DD channels and within the
next three days, all 24 will be carried by it.
Last week Tata Sky had decided to respond to
the MIB's notice expressing his company's
inability to carry any more DD channels as it
lacked the bandwidth on its existing
transponders, and stating that new capacity it
had signed up for on GSAT-10 has not been
delivered to it despite several pleas to all the
departments in ISRO, the MIB, department of
space, WPC, and what have you. This leaves only
Reliance Digital to decide a course of action
regarding the notice given to it.
According to the MIB directive all DTH operators
have to provide 24 DD channels irrespective of
whether they provide them a-la-carte or in
packages to their subscribers.
The channels which cable operators must show
are DD National, DD News, DD Bharati, DD Urdu,
DD Sports, DD India, DD Kashir, DD Punjabi, DD
Girnar, DD Sahyadri, DD Saptagiri, DD Malayalam,
DD Podhigai, DD Chandana, DD Bangla, DD North
East, DD Bihar, DD Uttar Pradesh, DD Rajasthan,
DD Madhya Pradesh, DD Oriya, Gyan Darshan,
Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV.