NEW DELHI, Oct 30 — The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Home Minister L.K. Advani today decided to permit private parties to set up platforms for direct-to-home television (DTH) in the country subject to certain conditions aimed at safeguarding national interests.

The GoM, which had arrived at a broad consensus on the issue after its meeting yesterday, completed its work today by coming to an agreement on certain issues which had been pending for long. The recommendations of the GoM would get the final nod from the Union Cabinet in the coming weeks.

According to reports, although the DHT issue was discussed at the meeting of the Union Cabinet today, there was no final government clearance.

At the briefing after the Cabinet meeting, the Information Technology Minister, Mr Pramod Mahajan, said the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Ms Sushma Swaraj, would prepare the Cabinet note and this could take a “couple of weeks”. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry is the administrative ministry for the Group.

The Group, chaired by Home Minister L.K. Advani, met twice yesterday, “unanimously” approved the report on DTH and discussed the issue again this morning, Mr Mahajan said.

The GoM had been set up by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee late last year in view of the changing technologies. The United Front government had on July 16, 1997, banned DTH (use of the Ku frequency) for broadcasting, after Star TV had demonstrated its capacity to set up a DTH platform in the country.

Sources in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry said the Group was of the view that the Ku bandwidth (frequency bands above 4800 MHz), on which the DTH operates, should be opened so that it could be made accessible to other sectors like the telecom sector, besides broadcasting. The Group comprising the Home Minister, Ms Swaraj, Law Minister Arun Jaitley and Mr Mahajan also had to consider the implications of permitting foreign players and the amount of equity to be allowed.