India’s Bharti Airtel Digital TV intends making more of its own set-top boxes. The plan is to support the nation’s ‘Make in India’ project and to make goods and products locally in order to save imports and the duties on imported boxes.

Shashi Arora, CEO, DTH/Media, Bharti Airtel said: “We are proud to partner with the government’s Make in India initiative and launch indigenous set-top-boxes made in the country. With this we aim to reduce our imports and thus help drive employment and growth within the country. In the long run, cost synergies will further help us extend more benefits to our customers. The launch also re-establishes our leadership in offering world class TV viewing experience with innovations such as these.”

Earlier this week Arora presented one of Bharti’s boxes to India’s minister of state for broadcasting, Rajyavardhan Rathore.

The new boxes will all be HD-capable and are based on a design by a subsidiary company of Hero Electronix and comply with MPEG-4 video with Dolby Digital+ Surround Sound, and serving (via a USB connector) video recording.

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