All the 90-odd pay channels including Star, Zee, Sony, Colors, ESPN will switch off their respective analogue signals from June 30 in the four metros making it mandatory for the 10-million cable homes to shift to a digital addressable cable set-top box. Even the 300-odd free-to-air channels may be switched off by July first week in order to enable the consumers of metros to shift to the digital addressable system (DAS) as mandated by the law.

Putting their weight behind the government’s digitisation drive, now Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the apex body of broadcasters has decided to switch-off all analogue TV signals of pay channels from July 1 in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. A meeting to this effect between the IBF and other stakeholders including the Multi Service Operators (MSOs) was held in Mumbai on Monday.

“It was decided that all pay channels will switch-off their respective analogue TV signals from July 1 in line with the amended cable television norms,” said an IBF insider.

On its part, even the office of the I&B minister Ambika Soni has made it clear to all operators that the government will not grant any extension to the June 30 digitisation deadline. “At least 60% or more digital set-top-box (STB) will be seeded in the metros before June 30th based on the current rate of deployment. The requirement of for about one crore digital STBs. Therefore we are not even entertaining any request for postponement of the deadline. There is no question of pushing back the date,” a senior official in the ministry told FE.

However, sources said some of the big MSOs have sent in requests to the I&B ministry to postpone the June 30th deadline by at least three-four months based on the time-lines mentioned in the Trai’s tariff order of April 30th.

While DAS will provide cable TV consumers a high-quality audio,video and wider choice of channels, for the government, the impending conversion of nearly 70 million analogue cable homes to DAS will lead to annual gains of R1,900 crore from service tax and income tax alone. Clubbed with the realisations from customs duty, entertainment tax and others, digitisation may lead to collection of up to R2,500 crore annually from FY13.

Currently, the government loses around R1,600 crore annually due to the analogue cable system networks because of leakages in the subscription revenue and non-realisation of various taxes on under-declaration.

The internal note prepared for the finance ministry states that the annual service tax realised from the cable industry stands at only around R55 crore, whereas the actual collections should be around R660 crore.

Similarly, the current income tax collections from the cable companies stand at a little under R200 crore annually, whereas it should be around R1,200 crore.

Together, the tax loss to the exchequer stands at R1,600 crore per annum. But this will change after DAS rollout.