With the clean-up census failing to deliver the numbers, the government has now pulled out a couple of carrots for cablemen from its bargain bag.

?We are giving the operators some more time to voluntarily disclose their connections, assuring them that this has nothing to do with sales tax or service tax,? said principal secretary to the chief minister Arun Bhattacharya. This followed his meeting on Thursday with broadcasters and multi-system operators (MSO).

Bhattacharya said there were some discrepancies between the cable count arrived at by Calcutta Police and the one submitted by MSOs. Sources said the MSO figures for the area under Calcutta Police were 268 operators and 1.5 lakh subscribers, while Calcutta Police came up with 320 operators and 1.02 lakh subscribers.

?We will now advertise in newspapers and on television channels, asking operators to come forward and disclose numbers,? said Bhattacharya.

To get a better fix on the figures and fight under-declaration, the government is also asking last-mile operators to get a licence from the Posts and Telegraph department.

The meeting straddled a Central government plank and a private prop.

A sample survey is being undertaken ? after allowing the operators 15 days? disclosure time ? to calculate the total subscriber base.

?We will be conducting a door-to-door survey through a private agency within a month,? disclosed Bhattacharya. The cost for this will be shared between broadcasters and MSOs.

Thursday?s meeting, held at Calcutta Information Centre, was attended by representatives of broadcasters, the four MSOs and operators? unions, government officials and the deputy commissioner of police (detective department-I).

This was a follow-up to a similar meeting on October 15, 2004, where the cable census was announced with a January 31 deadline. A lukewarm response to the call for voluntary disclosure forced the government to push back the deadline twice. This time, Bhattacharya expects everything to fall into place ?in the next three months?.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is monitoring the cable chaos in Bengal. ?A Trai representative met us recently to inquire about what we were doing,? said Bhattacharya.