Mumbai: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) minister Anurag Thakur, has informed the Rajya Sabha that MIB had resolved 265 complaints regarding over the top (OTT) content under the IT rules, 2021.

“Since the notification of the Rules, the ministry has received 265 grievances, which have been addressed in accordance with the laid down procedure,” the minister said.

A Code of Ethics must be followed by publishers of online curated content, according to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Ministry of Electronics and IT had said in a statement at the time of introducing the rules, “Since the matter relates to digital platforms, therefore, a conscious decision was taken that issues relating to digital media and OTT and other creative programmes on Internet shall be administered by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting but the overall architecture shall be under the Information Technology Act, which governs digital platforms.” 

As part of the rule announced in February 2021, the government also established a three level grievance redressal mechanism to handle complaints regarding Code violations.

The three tier mechanism for resolving grievances is as follows: Level I: Self regulation by broadcasters; Level II: Self regulation by the broadcasters' self regulatory organisations; and Level III: A mechanism for central government oversight.

According to the regulations, OTT platforms must automatically categorise the content into the following five age based categories: U (Universal), U/A 7+ (years), U/A 13+, U/A 16+ and A. (Adult).

The minister predicted that India's OTT market would grow at a rate of 21 per cent  per year to reach $2 Billion by 2024 while speaking at a summit last year.