July 27, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 30, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 26: Cable operators in the twin cities have warned that they would go from a three-hour daily shutdown to a complete “blackout” if the government failed to withdraw the federal excise duty.

The federal excise duty was introduced by the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) in the 2006 budget.

The duty means Rs25 per month per subscriber (in addition to the Rs300 or Rs350 they pay to the cable operators). The subscribers also pay Rs25 as PTV licence fee per month.

According to cable operators, the duty was “double taxation for mostly English channels the subscribers do not prefer to watch.

“There is no justification for this duty. The burden of this new tax will fall on the end users. Cable operators already pay so many taxes to the government,” said Cable Operators Union chairman Sheikh Ijaz while talking to Dawn.

He said cable operators paid between Rs100,000 and Rs1 million per annum as licence fees to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra). The licence fees could be higher depending on the size of the cable operating company.

The government charges us from Rs1 million to Rs2.5 million every year for showing CD channels and the amount can be higher, said Mr Ijaz.

Cable operators are paying all the above fees, he said, adding, “We also pay five per cent royalty on each advertisement and 15 per cent GST,” he said.

It was already pretty hard to get the subscribers pay the monthly fee, said one cable operator. They fight with us and say you show useless English channels. The subscribers, he added, wanted us to show Indian channels.

A spokesman for Pemra said it was an issue between CBR and the cable operators. “Pemra sympathises with the cable operators and wants the problem to be solved without complications,” he said.