Star India's much-awaited Hindi news channel will be launched on March 31, according to schedule.

From the midnight of March 30, the new editorial team at Star News will take charge of the content for the channel.

Contrary to media reports, Star India already has an agreement with VSNL for roof top programme transmission service and would not need to piggyback ride on another company to send its signals to Hong Kong.

According to VSNL's official website, the agreement was signed in November 2002.

According to VSNL, RPTS is popular with companies looking for quick access to uplink facilities from their studios.

It is ideal for live transmission as in the case of news and for point-to-point audio-visual feeds, it states. Star's four-month old agreement with VSNL puts to rest speculations that the channel will not able to keep its date with the viewers.

The media industry was rife with rumours that Star would need to use Rajat Sharma-owned Independent Media Private Ltd's uplink arrangement with VSNL to launch its operations.

Though Star officials refused to comment on their arrangement with VSNL, broadcasting industry experts say that the VSNL tie-up may have been done in anticipation of problems arising out of the new FDI guidelines for news channels uplinking out of India.

According to the new guidelines issued by the information & broadcasting ministry, all news channels uplinking out of India cannot have foreign equity of more than 26 per cent.