MUMBAI: These days, hardly a successful Western format escapes Indian television's attention. Same way, the obscenely popular ABC soap Desperate Housewives - which is presently having its fine run on Star World in India - has also found its desi destination.

Star India COO Sameer Nair today revealed that the network acquired the format rights to Desperate Housewives. "But it will take a long time," he said on the launch plans.

When queried as to whether soap queen Ekta Kapoor would be assigned the task of producing the Indian adaptation, Nair without definitively confirming it, admitted that Ekta Kapoor has got an edge.

Nair also recalled how Ekta had approached Star with a similar pilot project almost three years ago, much before Desperate Housewives became such a huge hit in the US as well as globally.

"Three years ago, Ekta Kapoor had approached us with this same topic which she had titled Kudiyon ka Zamana. But then the television space wasn't much used to such bold subjects. I think even Ekta shelved the idea later."

As already reported by sister concern Tellychakkar.com, Ekta Kapoor, Vinta Nanda and Manish Goswami have already expressed their desire to re-work the soap for Indian audiences.

Interestingly, Desperate Housewives is the show which helped the US broadcaster ABC to make a strong comeback against its competitors including Fox. The soap had made its debut in India on Star World this year on 5 July.