IT ministers urge opening up of DTH broadcasting

IT ministers urge opening up of DTH broadcasting
Sudipto Dey

New Delhi, July 15: Not to be outdone with Prime Minister stealing the thunder with his announcements relating to NLD and ending of VSNL monopoly in subsea optical fibre connectivity, the visiting state chief ministers and IT ministers have exhorted the government to expedite its decision-making process in regard to voice over IP, Direct-to-Home broadcasting policy and liberalising stranglehold of VSNL in matters relating to bandwidth.

Taking the government to task for dilly-dallying on DTH policy, chief ministers from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh called for opening up of direct-to-home broadcasting. Setting the ball rolling, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu called for allowing transfer of voice, data and video on Ku-band and C band. Calling for opening up internet telephony in the country, Naidu asked the government to permit voice over IP.

Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna emphasised the need to make IT and e-commerce tax free for the next three years. He called for decentralising All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to allow the states a say in intake of students technical courses. This was seconded by Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh.

Singh added that the centre should bring forward a modified private universities Bill with provisions for adequate incentives and better scope for private initiative for setting up IT universities or institutions of international standing.

He also called for keeping government intervention in IT industry to the minimum and merging the IT ministry with the Telecom Ministry.

Punjab government has announced plans to invest more than Rs 100 crores on its informationb technology plans, including the implementation of the national IT Task Force in the next three years. Gujarat government expressed its intention of becoming an information corridor and capture at least 10 per cent of the IT market by 2008.