Chennai, Nov 5 : The Tamil Nadu government will issue a global tender this month for sourcing 4.8 million colour television sets for distribution under its free colour television sets scheme.

In an all-party MLA committee meeting, chaired by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, the government decided to buy 837,500 TV sets for the ongoing fourth phase of the scheme and four million sets for the fifth phase.

The committee decided to issue the tender this week and finalise the deal by the third week of December.

Under the fifth phase, four million TV sets will be distributed between February and December 2010.

The state government started distributing free of cost colour TV sets in 2006 and gave away 30,000 sets in the first phase.

In the second and third phases, 2.5 million and 3.75 million sets respectively were distributed.

For the fourth phase, the government has already ordered around 4.16 million sets. The total TV sets for distribution under this phase will be around five million.(IANS)