Prasar Bharati, parent of India’s national broadcaster Doordarshan, has invited applications for allotment of vacant MPEG-4 slots of DD Free Dish for the period September 1, 2021to March 31, 2022 through 55th online e-auction.

The online e-auction process is likely to be held in the afternoon of August 23.

The slot(s) will be allotted in accordance with policy guidelines for allotment of DD Free Dish slots as notified on January 15, 2019 and as amended several times with the details available on the website, http://prasarbharati.gov.in.

Only satellite channels licensed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for downlinking in India would be eligible for slots allocation on DD Free Dish, an FTA DTH service.

Only license holder companies or their authorized distributor partners could apply for allocation of DD Free Dish slots.

In case the applicant company is other than licensee, the document/agreement signed between license holding company and applicant-company authorizing the applicant/bidder for distribution of the channel and bidding on behalf of the licensee must be submitted.

International public broadcasters licensed/registered/permitted by the MIB can also participate in the e-auction.

The channel provider shall be required to notify viewers of the need to use STBs authorized by Prasar Bharati, which reserves the rights to restrict access of MPEG-4 signals to unauthorized boxes at any point of time.

Bidding in the e-auction would be open to all genres (language) of channels with the starting reserve price of Rs. 65.34 lakhs (Rs. 653.4 million).

Successful bidders would be required to make the payments in five monthly installments as per payment schedule prescribed under the policy guidelines for allotment of DD Free Dish slots.