Thursday, September 18, 2014: Set Top Box Manufacturers assured upon moving towards Digitised India by fulfilling the government’s ‘Make in India’ mission. Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, Bimal Julka in meeting with domestic manufacturers on Friday to evaluate their inclination towards meeting the demand of 110 million set top boxes for Phase-III and IV of Cable TV digitisation.
During the meeting, the manufacturers gave assurance to Julka upon meeting the demand and making digitization a success story in India. They said that they have ample installed capacity to locally meet the demand of STBs.
They even mentioned about the employment opportunities that these measures would attract in manufacturing industry. It would offer employment to around 50,000 people with possible investment of around Rs.5000 million.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar, had taken measures to support indigenous development of STBs. On August 13, it was announced by the finance ministry that domestic STB manufacturers would be charged central sales tax at 2 per cent against the earlier paid VAT of 12-14.
Phase-III of digitization would cover all those urban areas which they couldn’t cover in prior two phases. Phase-IV would target towards rest of the India.
