MUMBAI: The first deadline for complete digitisation in the country, 31 December 2014 has been pushed to 2015 and 2016, as first reported by indiantelevision.com.

Now, the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Prakash Javadekar has assured stakeholders who were present at the Indian Broadcasting Foundation’s (IBF) annual general meeting that “Digitisation is on track and will happen as per new schedule.”

Phase III of digitisation is scheduled to be completed by December 2015 and phase IV by December 2016.

Javadekar once again emphasised that one of the key reasons for pushing digitisation to a further date was to allow time for Indian set top boxes (STBs) to be manufactured.

Regarding industry rating body Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), the Minister said that the government was also keen to have its rollout to have multiple agencies for ratings.

A meeting to discuss carriage fees is also likely to happen sometime soon between Javadekar and members of the IBF.

The Home Ministry has also given the I&B Ministry approval to treat files pending with it for more than three months as ‘cleared’ to speed up channel licence clearances.