With approximately 70 to 75 per cent seeding of STBs achieved on an average in areas chosen under the second phase of digitisation drive, analogue cable signals would be switched off in over 30 cities from Monday onwards.
Officials in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said digitisation would be implemented in these cities barring Bangalore and four towns in Gujarat where the deadline was being extended following court orders.
The UP government had yesterday written to the Ministry seeking extension of digitisation deadline.
"Though in some cities there is still a requirement of 30 per cent installation of set-top boxes (STBs), we are however confident that in the coming days the required effort will be made," a senior official told PTI.
The March 31 Phase II digitisation deadline was meant for 38 cities across fourteen states in the country.
These cities are Agra, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Howrah, Hyderabad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Meerut, Mysore, Nagpur, Nasik, Navi Mumbai, Patna, Pimpri- Chinchwad, Pune, Rajkot, Ranchi, Sholapur, Srinagar, Surat, Thane, Vadodara, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam.
According to the I&B Ministry's recent data, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Chandigarh and Allahabad have achieved nearly 100 percent digitisation while over 75 per cent digitisation had been achieved in Jodhpur, Thane, Aurangabad, Jaipur, Pune, Faridabad, Nashik, and Ghaziabad.
