n A couple of months later, a Karelibaug cable operator lodged a police complaint alleging that he was being threatened by another operator as he had refused to give up cable connections to the accused.

n Recently, the Star Sports distributor in the city got embroiled in a war of words with cable operators when he suspected they were claiming to have less connections than they actually had.

THE simmering tension among the 588 cable operators of the city for larger and larger shares of the connection pie is finally out in the open. The tussle, in fact, has taken on a new dimension with some distributors accusing them of shortchanging pay channels, thereby causing the channels and the government to lose out on revenue.

The real stumbling block in proving these charges, of course, is the absence of any check mechanism that could provide correct figures. But Star Sports distributor Sanjay Shukla backs up his discovery of a large number of ``unofficial'' connections with a logical argument: ``If even 30 per cent of the people have cable connections in a city of 15 lakhs, then the operators' estimates fall short.''

The fallout? Lower collections of entertainment-tax, for one. Officials say the 588 operators pay Rs 13 lakhs every three months for 74,000 connections. The actual figure should be around Rs 81 lakhs if, as Shukla estimates, 30 per cent of the city subscribes to cable TV.

Operators generally charge each subscriber Rs 130, out of which Rs 65 is earmarked for pay channels. From the rest comes the cost of laying cables and profit. Since the quantum of profits is not too high, cut-throat competition -- and shortchanging -- results.

``About 50 per cent of the money we earn goes to pay channels; the major share of the remainder goes towards cable and other infrastrutural costs. Since there are no huge profits in the business, some operators may be shortchanging the channels and the authorities'', admits a Karelibaug cable operator.

Officials say underhand operations often go unnoticed in the unorganised business. However, District Collector Anil Mukim says they do plan to conduct an in-depth survey to ascertain the actual number of cable-connections in the city.

``Since the survey -- scheduled to be held very soon involves lot of effort, we have asked the State government for a special grant'', he told Express Newsline. Some operators, however, are indignant at the implications of the `shortchanging' accusation. ``I have just 3,000 connections and I am being asked to pay for 4,500. Why should I do it?,'' asks VCCN cable network proprietor Om Dutt Sharma.