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CAS deferred

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 25. The Government today decided to defer the implementation of the Conditional Access System (CAS) in Delhi till after the Assembly elections while going ahead with the scheduled rollout of the new regime in cable television in the notified zones of Mumbai and Kolkata and all of Chennai on September 1.

A decision to this effect was taken this evening at a meeting at the residence of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, which was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, the Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Ravi Shankar Prasad, and BJP leaders, V.K. Malhotra and Madan Lal Khurana.

Though such a development has been on the cards for a while now — given the politicisation of CAS in a city that is heading for Assembly elections — a formal announcement was made today by Mr. Prasad in the company of Mr. Khurana, who is being projected as the BJP's chief ministerial candidate, and Mr. Malhotra. According to Mr. Prasad, the Government decided to defer the introduction of CAS in Delhi to prevent what is essentially a "consumer-friendly measure" from becoming a "case for competitive politics".

For his part, Mr. Khurana said he was not against CAS, but the manner in which it had been politicised by the Congress.

Maintaining that it was the Congress, which had set the ball rolling by expressing reservations on CAS, Mr. Malhotra said it would now be introduced in Delhi after evaluating its performance in the other metros.

Meanwhile, cable operators — who have been pressing hard for the speedy implementation of CAS — were quick to threaten an increase in the monthly cable charges to Rs. 450 in South Delhi where the new regime was to roll out on September 1.

Their contention was that each operator had already invested approximately Rs. 40 lakhs on equipment for a CAS-enabled system, and was now left with no option but to pass this on to the consumers.

This is the second time CAS has been deferred.

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