India reaches phase II digitisation target

India’s historical march towards cable television digitisation has taken a giant leap forward with the government expressing satisfaction over the implementation of Digital Addressable System (DAS) that covered 38 cities and towns in phase II.

According to Indiantelevision.com, Information & Broadcasting (I&B) ministry Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said that analogue signals had been switched off in 33 of the 38 localities at the stroke of midnight on 31 March.

Varma expressed that the success of the first and second phase of digitisation has strengthened his resolve that government’s digitisation initiative was on track to be completed before the 31 December 2014 deadline.

Overall, 75 per cent of the television homes in these 38 cities have been digitised, said Varma.

Varma also asserted that seven cities including Hyderabad, Amritsar, Chandigarh and Allahabad out of the 38 had 100 per cent digitisation, while another nine had achieved more than 75 per cent.