The union cabinet has approved the long pending revisions to the licensing guidelines of the direct-to-home (DTH) sector, information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Prakash Javadekar said on Wednesday. Under the revised terms, the licenses will be awarded for 20 years from the present 10 with an auto renewal clause for 10 years. The government feels that the amended DTH guidelines, with longer license period and clarity on renewals, relaxed FDI limits, etc., will ensure “fair degree of stability” and “new investments” in the DTH sector along with employment opportunities.
The existing DTH guidelines were silent on the course of action to be adopted after expiry of the 10 year license period and that led to multiple temporary extensions to DTH players after expiration of their original licenses. The revisions to the guidelines were pending since 2014, when the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) first issued its recommendations on issues related to new DTH licenses.
The government has also revised the license fee from 10% of gross revenues (GR), to 8% of adjusted gross revenues (AGR), which will be calculated after deduction of GST from GR. Also, the license fee will now be collected on a quarterly basis instead of annual payment. Among other amendments, the new guidelines cap the platform services at 5% of the respective DTH operators’ total channel carrying capacity. For instance, if a DTH operator has a capacity of 300 channels, it can’t offer more than 15 platform services. Also, an one-time non-refundable registration fee of Rs 10,000 per platform service channel will be charged from a DTH operator.
