Hyderabad: Nearly 60 per cent of TV sets in Telangana will go blank from April 1, Saturday, as the deadline for Phase III and IV of cable TV digitisation ended on March 31, Friday. These phases cover mostly mandals and rural areas in districts.

Out of the 86 lakh cable TV connections in the entire Telangana state, DTH services comprise nearly 20 lakh and the rest 66 lakh are cable TV connections. Of the 66 lakh cable TV connections, only 40 per cent amounting to 26,40,000 connections have set top boxes (STBs) required for availing services under Cable TV digitisation initiative launched by the Centre in 2012 and there is still a backlog of 39.60 lakh, which now face blockade of cable TV services.

Similar is the case in Andhra Pradesh where there is still a backlog of 55 per cent. Nearly 45 lakh TV sets in AP would go blank from April 1. AP chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has written to the Centre seeking an extension of deadline till December 2017. However, there has been no response from the Telangana government on this issue so far.

TS cable operators have urged chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to intervene in the issue and demand the Centre to extend the deadline till December 2017. Cable TV operators blamed both the Centre and state governments for non-installation of STBs for such a large number of households.

“Without ensuing adequate supply of STBs, the governments fixed impractical deadlines for cable digitisation. The cable TV industry, which has been providing employment to thousands of people in both the states, will collapse if the deadline is not extended. Even the STBs that were supplied so far are of poor quality, mainly imported from China,” said M. Jithender, president, TS Cable TV Operators’ Welfare Association.

However, the Centre reiterated on Friday that there will be no further extension of deadline and directed all broadcasters, multi system operators to stop analog signal from midnight of March 31 and transmit only digital signals. The Centre had already extended the deadline by three months from December 31, 2016.

The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2011 had mandated a switch-over of the existing analogue cable TV networks to digital addressable system (DAS) in four phases. Digital switch-over has already taken place in phase I and II areas, while it was scheduled to be completed in phase III and phase IV areas by 31 December 2016, a deadline that was later extended till March 31, 2017.