Will the action come home to Jharkhand? (AP)

Jamshedpur, May 25: Football fans in Jharkhand may not be able to watch the World Cup at home this year.

It could be a complete blackout with viewers in the state stuck in a feud between the ESPN-Star Sports distributor and local cable operators.

Jamshedpur is the second largest cable market in eastern India after Calcutta with a subscriber base of over one lakh. The steel city will be joined by cities such as Ranchi, Dhanbad and Bokaro.

The problem arose after Kalyaneshwari Sales, the Ranchi-based distributor of ESPN Software India Private Limited, refused to renew licenses to a majority of cable operators in these cities.

Deepak Shahdeo, the proprietor of Kalyaneshwari Sales, has set a condition of providing decoding boxes for ESPN-Star Sports channels to cable operators concerned in these four cities on the condition that they shell out an amount that matches the earlier subscriber base slab.

Shahdeo said they are not pressurising the cable operators. ?We are only demanding that the cable operators maintain the minimum subscriber base that existed a year ago. But they want to negotiate a minimum slab rate with us. We cannot afford this keeping in mind the subscriber base in these cities, particularly Jamshedpur,? he said. However, cable operators allege that the distributor, who has taken over from April 1 this year, is forcing them to spend three times for different subscriber base slabs.

Looking for a solution, local viewers approached the East Singhbhum district administration, only to realise that the matter pertains to another regulatory authority ? Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

Football fans are unhappy over the state of affairs. R.D. Singh, a die-hard fan from Sonari, told said The Telegraph that residents of his locality are in a fix over what to do. ?Our local cable operator hasn?t been giving us the ESPN-Star Sports package for the past three months,? said Singh, wondering how he was going to watch the World Cup.

?We have decided to approach the ESPN-Star Sports India Private Limited?s regional office in Calcutta to solve the matter amicably,? said sources at Jamshedpur Central Cable Network. Cable operators in the steel city are scared of a sudden decrease in their subscriber base once they increase the rates from Rs 200 to Rs 250 to over Rs 350.

Shahdeo said they had tied up with at least 10 places in the steel city including clubs, hotels and marriage halls to screen the World Cup. However, lower-middle class and middle class families are averse to this idea as they have to spend money to see the matches at these venues.