The company, which has invested $10 million till date over its five-year stint in India, plans to offer increased reality programming besides the 24-hour Hindi feed, a senior Discovery Communications India official said here.

"We will double investments in India to $20 million by 2004 and have already received FIPB nod for hiking this investment. Mainly, this money will be used for increased Hindi dubbing, digitising Discovery and expanding infrasructural operations," managing director Mr Kiran Karnik told PTI here.He said the company, as a global policy, does not invest in production equipment, and all production is sourced to third-party specialists but digitising Discovery will take considerable investments.

Mr Karnik also did not rule out the channel's active participation in Direct-to-Home (DTH) platforms, in the event of DTH transmission becoming a reality in India.

"We are very keen on DTH beginning as soon as possible in India since it will give our viewers much better picture and sound quality," Mr Karnik said.Mr Karnik said that Discovery would be willing to participate and invest in a DTH platform, provided the government took a clear stand on various aspects including the sectoral cap of 20 per cent imposed by the Information & Broadcasting ministry.

"Discovery is keen to invest in a DTH platform but we, like others, are awaiting clear guidelines from the government on the entire issue," he said. He said digitising Discovery - Animal Planet is already encrypted and digitised - would mean wider reach, in terms of audiences who are stationed in remote, far-flung areas where cable connectivity is difficult to manage.Dicovery has two channels in India - Discovery and Animal Planet.

The latter is a product of the joint venture between BBC and Discovery Communications India, launched in March 1999 and reaches 6.5 million households in India. Discovery Communications is a wholly-owned subsidiary of discovery networks international.