Bharti Airtel’s plans to launch direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast services may be further delayed after the home ministry raised questions regarding the company’s foreign direct investment (FDI) component, thus lobbing the application right back into the information & broadcasting ministry’s court.

According to I&B sources, a meeting has been sought with Bharti officials to obtain the necessary clarifications related to the equity structure and to verify whether indirect foreign investment levels in the DTH arm breach the overall cap. Bharti Airtel had applied for a DTH licence earlier this year under its 100 per cent subsidiary, Bharti Telemedia. However, since total foreign investment-including FDI, investments by non-resident Indians and foreign institutional investors-in DTH is capped at 49 per cent, with the FDI component at 20 per cent, the company was forced to make certain changes in its structure.

Since the FDI level in Bharti Airtel is 49 per cent, it reduced its stake in Bharti Telemedia to 40 per cent to comply with the regulatory provisions and another group company would pick up the remaining 60 per cent. Bharti plans to roll out DTH services by December. The company is likely to get transponder space on Insat 4CR, scheduled for launch sometime in August-September. Insat 4CR is the replacement for Insat 4C, which crashed last year, and has 12 Ku-band transponders. Bharti is expected to share this satellite with Reliance Communications’ Blue Magic DTH services.

Bharti Teletech will manufacture set-top boxes for the DTH service. At present, it manufactures or imports from China set-top boxes for free-to-air channels. The hub (required for downlinking and de-encryption of DTH channel feeds) is coming up at Manesar in Haryana.