Calcutta, Sept. 13: Brilliant brainchild to bland burial, the tool to empower television viewers with choice had come full circle. But the buzz about the conditional access system (CAS) is growing once again.

MSO Alliance, an organisation of multi-system operators (MSOs), is in court fighting for a speedy central decision on CAS implementation.

“We relied on the government and went ahead with preparations, but nothing happened in the end,” said K. Jayaraman, managing director of Hathway Cable, one of the largest MSOs in the country and a member of the alliance.

The BJP government had initiated CAS ? a means of viewing satellite channels of one’s choice through a set-top box ? in 2003, but denotified it in early 2004 after failing to implement it around the country. Only Chennai ran CAS.

Hathway argued in Delhi High Court yesterday that it was because of the government’s decision that it had invested Rs 800 crore in procuring set-top boxes. “We have waited for a long time and want the government to make CAS applicable immediately or give us a time-frame by which it plans to launch it,” Jayaraman said.

Other MSOs, too, continue to count their losses, as an estimated 10 lakh set-top boxes lie in storehouses across the country.

“We had sunk around Rs 15 crore in CAS preparation and nearly one lakh boxes are still with us,” claimed a former official of what was RPG Netcom, the largest MSO in Calcutta during the CAS implementation phase.

Other Calcutta-based MSOs also claim to have incurred heavy losses. “We had invested around Rs 80 lakh in CAS infrastructure in 2003. The analogue set-top boxes we got have become junk now,” said Gurmeet Singh, a director of Manthan.

Some MSOs have embarked on addressability models along the lines of CAS on their own. “We have started a digital transmission service in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore through set-top boxes,” said Jayaraman. The three MSOs in Calcutta are experimenting with similar set-ups.

Ram Jethmalani, appearing for MSO Alliance in court, argued that before amending the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act of 1995, the legislature had satisfied itself that CAS was in public interest.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, appointed cable watchdog, also informed the court that it had submitted its recommendations to the government in October 2004, but received no response.

The Centre is likely to present its argument in court at the next hearing on Thursday.