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Vote against CAS
 Conditional Access System (CAS) was introduced in Chennai a few months ago. But it did not perturb many people – neither the Tamils or the pay channels. Life continued to move on. The Central government that rushed through with this idea, was caught gaping.
That was because ‘all’ the popular Tamil channels were free-to-air. So the Tamils couldn’t care less if there was a
CAS imposed on them or not. And the pay channels were mostly Hindi, English and sports channels and Chennai was not a niche market for them.
A small percentage of parents gave in to their children who could not envision life without Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and bought them
set-top boxes for a hefty fee.
But there were some who were greatly upset by the government move. Take the cricket fans (read fanatics). They have nothing but abuse for the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which has introduced CAS only in Chennai. You go to Kanchepuram and you can watch the Tri-Series for free!
Many of the north Indians settled here were forced to give up watching the famous ‘K’ series serials because they were all aired by pay channels.
Ganesh Prabhu, a first year visual communication student of SRM College, Chennai, went one step ahead of simply gnashing his teeth. He has filed an online petition in ‘Online
Petition.com’.
“On September 1, 2003, CAS was forced upon Chennaivasis and since then we have been deprived of popular TV channels which the rest of the country is able to watch without a set-top box. This is totally unfair to one group of people. And the Constitution says we are all equal!”
 He also urged the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to implement CAS in a uniform manner in all the four metropolis.
Ganesh wants to know why the ministry chose Chennai for implementing it first, when other metros were in the list. “Look at the furore it created when it was recently introduced in south Delhi. This is because most of the Hindi channels are pay channels,” he says.
The student also added that CAS was introduced with a promise to make the cable system more transparent and cheaper. But it has achieved none of these goals. A set-top box costs Rs 4,000. And then there are the additional charges…
The minority Hindi, English-speaking population of Chennai has been completely ignored. All major Tamil channels have helplessly gone free for fear of losing their ad revenues. But major channels from Star, Sony, HBO, and Discovery still remain pay channels and charge exorbitant rates.
Ganesh has appealed to I&B Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to withdraw CAS from Chennai and is of the opinion that India is not yet ready for it.
Another aspect which is confusing Chennaivasis is the mixing of feed from both the multi-system operators –
Hathway and SCV - in the metropolis. Subscribers do not know which MSO feed they receive and there is no transparency in it.
In the end, who has gained who has lost? The government has not gained anything from the move and it has certainly lost people’s faith in its policies.
Do you feel just as strongly about Chennai being targeted like this? Go to
http://www.petitiononline.com/cas12345/petition.html
and vote your heart out.
N Arun Kumar
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