Tamil Nadu - Udhagamandalam   

Stalemate over cable TV dues continues

Special Correspondent

For the second day, residents could not view programmes

Udhagamandalam: Following the civic administration cracking down on cable television operators who had not settled their dues to the municipality for long, the residents of many areas in this hill station could not view television programmes for the second day on Saturday.

The dues were towards charges payable by the cable TV operators to the municipality for providing underground and overhead cables to their customers. Though hectic activity was witnessed on Saturday with groups of cable TV operators attempting to get the civic officials to allow them to carry on with their operations, the latter were in no mood to entertain their plea on the grounds that the amount owed, which ran into several lakhs of rupees, was long overdue.

Meanwhile the president, Nilgiris Cable TV Owners and Operators Welfare Association, V. Selvakumar, claimed in a statement issued here that since the Municipal Commissioner, Seeni Ajmal Khan, had `unilaterally' initiated action against the operators and snapped their connections, they had been badly affected and the public had also been subjected to inconvenience. He hoped that the municipality would stop inflicting losses on the operators by snapping the cables and call them for talks. He added that if the municipality did not change its approach, the operators would seek judicial intervention and take to the streets. He contended that instead of taking action suddenly, the municipality could have informed the operators and collected the charges on a yearly basis.

He added that the operators had offered to settle a part of their dues. However, Mr. Khan told The Hindu , "the ball is in the court of the operators."

Earlier, the municipality had insisted that they must clear the balance. Now, an offer has been made to them to settle 50 or 25 per cent immediately and the balance later.

When the charges were being paid promptly in various other parts of the State, why was Udhagamandalam different, he wondered.

Apart from improving the financial position of the municipality, there was no other motive in initiating action against the operators, he said in reply to a question.

Meanwhile with the season in progress and elections nearing, consumers representing various sections of the society were showing signs of getting restless. "We hope that the two sides will hammer out a solution at least by Sunday," said a housewife.

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