Kohima, February 17 (DIPR): The first meeting of the State Level Monitoring Committee to enforce the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 was held in the office of Director, Information and Public Relations, Kohima on February 16.
The meeting decided to inform all Deputy Commissioners through official notification to constitute District Level Monitoring Committees as specified by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, GoI, with District Magistrate/ Deputy Commissioner as Chairman. The District Level Monitoring Committee will provide a forum where public may lodge a complaint regarding content aired over cable television network.
It was also decided that Local Cable Operators must get registered in the local Post Office and get it renewed from time to time as prescribed in the Act and Multi System Operators must get approval from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, GoI to start their operation.
The members deliberated on the issues of Non-carriage of free to air channels and mandatory channels as prescribed by the Government from time to time and implementation of Digitization of Cable TV Network Phase: II for the urban areas of the State. The cut-off date for the implementation was December 31, 2015, but as requested by the Local Cable Operators, Secretary IPR, has written to the Ministry of I&B for extension of the cut-off date by three months for Nagaland.
Secretary IPR, T. Ao, IAS apprised the members on the importance of State or District Level Committees regarding Cable TV Network ( Regulation ) Act, 1995, wherein, the Committee is also empowered to prohibit transmission of certain programmes in public interest if any programme or channel carried by it is not in conformity with the prescribed programme code and advertisement code or if such programme is likely to promote on grounds of religion, race, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, linguistic or regional groups or castes or communities or which is likely to disturb the public tranquility. He also stressed on the importance of revenue collection for the Government in the form of Central tax and State entertainment tax.
