The 'King' has stepped into the capital. Chief Minister J Jayalalthaa today kickstarted the operations of Arasu Cable TV, the State owned multi-system operator, in the city.

According to an official release here, Jayalalithaa, honouring a promise she made during the 2011 Assembly elections, launched the service of Arasu Cable on 2 September 2011. Thanks to this, the company has been providing cable TV service to the people of Tamilnadu in an affordable price.

Barring Chennai, the company is functioning in 31districts of the State, with 58 lakh subscribers. 'Arasu Cable is now the single largest MSO in the country. It is giving maximum number of channels at a minimum price,' said the release, adding that cable TV operators and general public are supporting Arasu Cable a lot.

The release added: 'So far, 2000 cable operators in Chennai have applied to enroll themselves with Arasu Cable. These operators have 13 lakh subscribers. The operators will be given signals in a phased manner.'

Having in mind that cable services in Chennai have to be digitised as per a Central government notification, the Chief Minister has ordered to procure set top boxes at the earliest. People have been requested to pay Rs 500 as advance to their cable operators for installing set top boxes. So far, eight lakh subscribers have applied for set top boxes and steps are being taken to provide them with set top boxes soon.

The release further stated: 'Today, Jayalalithaa inaugurated the services of Arasu Cable TV in Chennai through video conferencing from the Secretariat. Following this, the company will provide 80 television channels in analog mode, 75 in digital mode. The 155 channels will be in different languages and different genres. Rs 70 will be collected per month from the subscriber for 100 channels. Extra amount will be collected from the subscribers to enable them to watch more channels.'