I&B Ministry
Consumer body seeks I&B intervention on CAS
MUMBAI: Even as the Mumbai High Court decision on the cable industry issues involving consumers, broadcasters and cable operators is pending, a Mumbai based consumer activist organisation has decided to appeal directly to union minister of state for information and broadcasting Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Consumer Action Network (CAN) president Ahmad M Abdi has written a letter to the minister urging him to take necessary steps to protect the interest of consumers under the conditional access system (CAS) regime. CAN is a consumer activist organisation comprising of lawyers registered under the Society Registration Act, 1860.
According to the letter, a copy of which is with the indiantelevision.com team, the following issues need to be sorted out:
* The ministry must constitute a regulatory authority. The consumer has got no resource to file complaints to grievances in the absence of one. Till the conversions commission becomes a reality, an adhoc regulatory authority should be in place where multifarious issues relating to the industry can be sorted out.
* The ministry must look into the fact that the broadcasters are bundling their pay channels as bouquets and pressuring the consumer to subscribe to the entire bouquet by pricing the popular individual higher. This practice adopted by the broadcasters is prima facie unfair, unreasonable and exploitative in nature and it is duty of the government to regulate and check such types of practices in public interest.
* The bouquet of “free-to-air” (FTA) channels should include the right mix of entertainment, news, sports, music and children’s programmes which can accessed by the consumer who pays the FTA bouquet price of Rs 72 per month.
* The I&B ministry must urge the finance ministry to exempt cable TV service of FTA bouquet from the service tax net. The reason being that cable TV is the basic source of information and entertainment to the common masses as well as the economically weaker section of the society.
* The state governments must yield to the request from consumer bodies that the FTA cable TV service should become exempt from the purview of entertainment tax.
* The ministry must develop a mechanism to counter the probable exploitation of the consumers by the cable operators or multi-system operators (MSOs). There are fears that the cable trade could pressure consumers to subscribers to pay channels along with FTA channels – refusing to provide FTA channels alone. It must be mandatory to provide cable TV service as per demand rather than force.
I&B Ministry
Press Sewa Portal digitises 1.5 lakh records, streamlines periodical registrations: MIB
Online system spans 780 districts; Rs 5.6 crore penalties, 88,315 titles cancelled
NEW DELHI: India’s print media registry has quietly moved from dusty files to digital dashboards. The government has digitised more than 1.5 lakh historical records of newspapers and periodicals and shifted registrations fully online through the Press Sewa Portal.
Introduced under the Press and Registration of Periodicals (PRP) Act, 2023, the portal now handles all applications for registering periodicals, replacing the earlier paper-heavy system created under the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867, which has since been repealed.
The digital shift brings a wide range of services onto a single platform. Publishers can now register new periodicals, revise registrations, transfer ownership, file annual statements, pay penalties online and apply for circulation verification without navigating government offices.
As part of the rollout, specified authorities in 780 districts across India have been onboarded onto the platform. Since 1 March 2024, the portal has processed 11,081 applications and issued certificates across different categories.
The transition has also brought stronger compliance. According to government data, Rs 5.63 crore in penalties has been collected through the portal so far. States such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh account for some of the largest penalty collections.
At the same time, the authorities have carried out a major clean-up of inactive or non-compliant publications. A total of 88,315 periodicals have been cancelled nationwide, with Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi among the states reporting the highest number of cancellations.
The government says the system will continue to evolve based on feedback from users. The Press Registrar General of India (PRGI) regularly reviews suggestions to improve services and make compliance easier for publishers.
The full list of registered newspapers and periodicals is available on the PRGI website under the Registered Titles section.
The information was shared in a written reply in the Lok Sabha by minister of state for information and broadcasting and parliamentary affairs L Murugan, responding to a question from Damodar Agrawal.
