NEW DELHI: The information and broadcasting ministry is likely to issue an ordinance by the end of the week, making it mandatory for Neo Sports to share its cricket telecast feed with Prasar Bharati.

Ministry sources told Indiantelevision.com that as the minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi was not in Delhi, deliberations on drafting an ordinance can only commence on Tuesday.

If an ordinance is finalized, it will be sent to the law ministry for clearance and only then referred to the union cabinet for approval. As this process is unlikely to be complete by Thursday when the cabinet meets, a special meeting may be held later to clear the ordinance.

Negotiations had earlier broken down with Nimbus which owns Neo Sports when the private channel insisted that Doordarshan should either encrypt the channel or show the matches as a deferred telecast. After almost three days of negotiations, Prasar Bharati officials said the conditions set by Nimbus was not in conformity with the uplinking/downlinking guidelines issued by the government.