Give details of recharged prepaid mobiles, government tells retailers

NEW DELHI: Retailers selling prepaid mobile vouchers will have to give the service providers details of all the mobile numbers they recharge using old currency notes, a top government official said on Friday.

The finance ministry on Thursday allowed consumers with pre-paid connections to do top-ups for a maximum of .`500 each using older currency notes till December 15. “The retailers or resellers need to submit the old currency notes along with the subscribers' mobile numbers to the telecom service provider,” telecom secretary JS Deepak told ET.

The exemption to use the defunct notes of .`500 is allowed for a period from the midnight of November 24, up to and inclusive of December 15, theFM said. The move, which came 15 days after the demonetisation of two high-value currency notes, brought some respite to more than 90% of India’s mobile users with prepaid connections.