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CHENNAI, May 17

THE Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG) has written to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, to notify the legislation enacted by the Assembly to regulate cable television channels in the Official Gazette and also frame the rules of the recently passed Cable Television Networks Regulation Act, 2002.

The letter also asks the Government to set up an authority that would be empowered to receive complaints of unfair trade practices against cable TV operators, multi-system operators and broadcasting companies.

While thanking the State Government for passing the Act regulating cable TV operators, Mr N.L. Rajah, Trustee, CAG, said the group had been receiving complaints relating to cable distribution issues. Some of the problems are the arbitrary price fixation by various cable TV operators,varying from area to area. Subscription rates are also not proportionate to what the cable TV operators claim to be the increase in input cost.

Mr Rajah said there was also the problem of under-declaration by the cable TV operators. This should be an area of concern to the State Government. Chennai alone is estimated to have 12 lakh cable TV connections while only about two lakh are said to have been declared by the operators. This means that there is a loss of about Rs 2 crore every month to the exchequer by way of non-payment of entertainment tax.

The practice of offering the consumer "bouquets" (several channels bundled together) was an unfair trade practice as the consumer had no option but to pay for the whole bouquet while he or she might want to view just one of the channels in the bouquet, Mr Rajah said. CAG welcomed that in Section 9 of the Tamil Nadu Act, bundling of channels had been prohibited.

He said it was significant that issues relating to clear reception had been addressed by the Central Act — the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act 2002. He hoped that since there was no repugnancy between the State and Central Acts, arrangements would be made to implement both the Acts.

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