A business lobby has cautioned the government against a move to impose the sharing of the television feed of events of national importance, including sports, with national public broadcaster Doordarshan.

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) said such legislation would have a detrimental impact on private television channels.

FICCI made its recommendation in an advocacy note to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, chairman of the group of ministers for uplinking and downlinking of TV channels from India, according to a statement from FICCI.

The FCCI move was backed by broadcasters like STAR TV, Sony International TV, Zee Telefilms, TEN Sports and ESPN-STAR Sports.

FICCI pointed out that "mandatory sports licensing" under the proposed norms for uplinking of TV channels from India would seriously impact revenues, quality of programming and the investment climate.

It argued the proposed legislation would have a direct bearing on popular sports events such as international cricket matches as well as the Olympics and Commonwealth Games.

FICCI expressed apprehension that the media industry would be up against anti-competitive forces and this would adversely affect the development of sports, encourage piracy, scale down revenues and stunt overall growth of the media industry.