Mangaluru: Minister for Information R. Roshan Baig on Sunday said that the state government is keen to have its own cable television network services. “We are pursuing the matter”, he said.

During an informal talk here in the Circuit House, Mangaluru, the minister said, “Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has rejected the proposal of the state government, which saught the permission to have its own cable network in the state, like in Tamil Nadu”, he said.

In Tamil Nadu, the government is providing cable services to each household for a payment of Rs 100 every month. Here, the cable network operators are charging about Rs 500 on each connection. When we called for a meeting to reduce the price, the operators say that they are giving over 500 channels. But the question is who has time to watch all the 500 channels?, the minister asked.

As a follow up, we have approached Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is a Union Minister for Communications and Information technology. We are waiting for his reaction, he said.