DTH players form cartel, seek tax sops

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Major DTH players, including Tata Sky, Dish TV and Bharti Airtel, on Wednesday urged the government to consider reducing their tax burden. The companies, which have come together to form a lobby, the DTH Operaters Assosiation of India (DOAI), said that one of the key barriers in attaining their goal of digitisation by Commonwealth Games of 2010 was the high tax burden on them. If it is reduced, the industry would make DTH services more accessible and affordable.

Currently, the cumulative tax burden accounts for 56% of the revenue. This tax burden passes onto the consumer making the services expensive. "We will work with the government towards making the tax burden lighter,”said Vikram Kaushik, CEO, Tata Sky, at a conference to announce the formation of the pressure group.

Jawahar Goel, managing director, Dish TV, said that the industry body will also work with the broadcasters and the regulatory body, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), to make the DTH prices affordable.

Tony D’Silva of Sun Direct said that DTH players would strive to make market specific bouquet of channels and bundles of services possible exclusive of the broadcasters bouquet. Prakash Bajpai of Reliance ADAG said that the association wants conditional access system (CAS) to be rolled out in India to promote addressability and digitalisation and also address the issue of content rariff rationalisation.