BSNL, MTNL likely to miss deadline to verify pre-paid subscribers

NEW DELHI: In what could be an embarrassment to the government, state-owned telecom companies — BSNL and MTNL — are likely to miss the March 31 deadline to re-verify all their pre-paid users. With the department of telecom (DoT) categorically stating the deadline will not be extended, these companies are confronted with a penalty of Rs 1,000 per unverified subscriber, in addition to having disconnect these customers.

Consider the figures: As per the latest status report, MTNL (as of March 2, 2007) is yet to re-verify 71.57% of its customer base. While March figures for BSNL are yet to tabled, the PSU as of February 16, had to authenticate about 42% of its customers.

Amongst private players, Reliance Communications and Spice Telecom have the largest number of unverified customers at 29.61% and 21.41%, respectively. So far, Reliance Communications and Spice has completed the verification of 70.39% and 78.59% of their customers respectively.

When contacted, a top BSNL executive said that the PSU “was trying its best to meet the deadline”. “If we are unable to re-verify all our customers, then we may have to seek an extension. Some of the other operators may also seek an extension of the deadline,” he added.

When asked on the issue, MTNL executives said the company, which offers services in both Delhi and Mumbai, was “optimistic of achieving the target of verifying all its subscribers by March 31, 2007, as mandated by the government”.

On the other hand, the latest data from the Apex Advisory Council for Telecom in India (ACT) show that Aircel has completed the verification of 99.71% of its subscribers, Bharti Airtel at 89.86%, Hutchison-Essar at 95.77%, Idea Cellular at 93.90%, Reliance Telecom at 94.32% and Tata Teleservices at 97.92%.

The ACT figures also reveal that as of March 02, 2007, 81.82% of India’s 150 million plus mobile users had been re-verified. A top industry executive told ET, that all private operators would complete the task of verifying their subscribers within the stipulated deadline.

“It will be discriminatory if BSNL and MTNL being state-owned are given extensions,” the executive added. In July last year, the Department of Telecom had first set a deadline of December 2006 to complete the process of re-verification.

However, the DoT extended the deadline to March 31, 2007 after operators contended that the “the time period of 5 months given by the Government to physically verify the addresses of the existing subscriber base was unrealistic and impossible to adhere to, especially considering the enormous practical difficulties involved in this task”.