Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Centre will be keeping a close watch on cable operators, especially in border areas, to check whether channels operating from Pakistan and China are available on their networks. To scrutinise the output feed, the government has decided to install a ‘monitoring device’ on their head-ends.
A head-end is an appliance that receives TV signals as input from satellites and processes them into cable-quality signals for distribution among homes and cable networks. Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL), a government enterprise, which provides technical input and consultancy to the ministry of information and broadcasting, will soon start installing the devices.
Officials in the know of the matter said that monitoring of transmission would be done in a “non-intrusive manner”. “It (monitoring and installation of devices) is more of a strategic issue. Complaints were coming mainly from border areas about unauthorised transmission of Pakistan and China origin,” said officials.
An advisory issued by the ministry on Tuesday to inform about the decision for output feed monitoring through a monitoring device. “The monitoring devices are to be installed on the head-end of the cable operators, under the provision of Sub-Section 4 of Section 10A of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995,” it reads.
