New Delhi, Jan. 4: The information and broadcasting ministry is almost ready with the draft of a legislation that would compel private television channels to share live coverage of sports events with Doordarshan.

The draft bill will be placed before the Union cabinet by the end of this month, information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi said today.

Mandatory sharing of feed of sports events of “national importance” with the public broadcaster is part of the “downlinking guidelines”issued by the ministry in November 2005.

Semi-finals and finals of international tournaments are on the must-share list, as are events at other levels if India is participating. Cricket matches also figure on it.

The ministry has argued that public broadcasters in other countries, too, enjoy access to live sports footage telecast by private channels.

But the guidelines have upset private broadcasters, reluctant to share live feed with Doordarshan’s terrestrial channel after they have won “exclusive” broadcast rights to an event.

Yesterday, the issue came up in the Supreme Court where ESPN STAR sought an injunction restraining the government from taking punitive action against it for not sharing footage of the ongoing India-South Africa cricket series.