Mumbai, June 06: Those planning to cheer their favourite teams while dining with friends in city restaurants and hotels may have to change their agenda and stay home to watch T-20 World Cup matches.
Reason: A spat between Novex, which owns screening rights, and Ahar, an association of Indian hotels and restaurants, which has appealed to more than 6,000 of its members in the city to switch off their TV sets till the T-20 World Cup is over.
The tournament, which started in England on Friday will end on June 21.
Ahar president Narayana Alva said none of their members would promote the ongoing World Cup matches and would switch off their TV sets for the next 15 days to protest against the fees demanded by the company (Novex Communications Pvt Ltd), which has bought the telecast rights to beam the matches. “The company is demanding something between Rs 10,000 and Rs 60,000 as the fees for every TV set per year. It means that if I have three sets in my hotel, I will have to pay over Rs 1.5 lakh, which is beyond our capacity,” says Alva.
Associate director of Novex Communications Ltd Anurag Parmar, in turn, said the fees his company was charging the commercial establishments in the city was decided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and was legal. “It is the law of the land,” he said, refuting that there was anything illegal in it. Parmar said average fees per TV connection is around Rs 50,000 per annum. “Most restaurant owners are aware of the charges and they are also cooperating with us,” he added.
Asked if customers would have to shell out additional money for watching matches at hotels and restaurants if hoteliers agree to pay the telecasting company, Alva said there was no question of paying and that they would not burden customers’ bills. They would rather keep the TVs switched off. “Hoteliers neither advertise nor charge extra money for watching cricket matches,” he said.
Alva added that all members of Ahar had legal cable connections and paid the charges regularly.”Novex can cut our cable connections. Why is it taking police help to restaurants to pressure us?” he asked. However, Parmar said accor5ding to Trai directives, Novex was justified in taking police help to recover the charges.
—-Agencies–