k janarthanan a resident of tahsildar nagar in madurai city has been shelling out just rs 200 towards monthly cable tv subscription charges recently his local cable operator lco approached him with a sheet of paper asking him to select the channels of his choice and told him that the range of channels he chooses would henceforth determine his subscription chargei was taken aback to learn that i had to pay more than rs 300 a month if i have to watch all the channels i have been watching so far which is an increase by 33 i have to sacrifice a few channels to keep it around rs 250 to suit my budget he said janarthanan said that all the advertisements on the packages were misleading since they were not inclusive of gst which when added only increased the charges the new rules introduced by telecom regulatory authority of india trai allowing the customers to choose only channels they would like to watch would help only those in other states where residents are fleeced and not tamil nadu where the government has fixed the price lcos also fear that they will lose their revenue share there are residents who have switched over to dth and other technologies expecting the cable subscription price to increase j rajan a resident of gomathipuram said that he recently switched over to dth after a simple research showed that it offered him a far better deal it gave him a wider spectrum of channels suiting his needs than those offered by cable in his budget it will mainly affect migrants who watch channels across various languages those from other states settled in tamil nadu have to shell out more money as they have to opt for more channels he saidg damodaran state vicepresident of thamizhaga cable tv operators general welfare association tcoa said that although it was proposed to benefit customer it was the channels which were going to earn more while the customers and local cable operators would suffer for instance a tamil channel which was paid rs 3 crore for one crore subscription by arasu cable has increased its price and fixed it at rs 19 its revenue will increase by many folds while the customers will be forced to pay more for limited channels he saidthe new rules will help only residents of cities like mumbai and other states where the cable operators charged up to rs 500 in tamil nadu where government controlled the subscription the charge was already very less he also warned that the channels would increase their subscription price in future resulting in increased burden on the customers a pandi president of cable operators guild madurai said that the new rule had complicated the way they functioned it was not possible to adhere to the march 31 deadline fixed by trai since it might take two more months to equip themselves to meet the challenge we now have to prepare a unique pack for every individual as