MHA to hold phone cos CMDs liable for unverified J&K users

NEW DELHI: Sending a stern message to mobile service operators in J&K, the Union home ministry has threatened to make their CMDs liable for any unverified mobile connections in the state. Giving the operators a week’s time to bring mobile subscriber verification/re-verification levels to 100%, the MHA has categorically told them to fire any franchisee who defaults on the verification guidelines and terminate all unverified connections.

“We have told the service operators to ensure that all connections are verified as per norms laid down in January 2010, or face criminal proceedings at the level of the CMD and even cancellation of licence if verification continues to be lax....the defaulting franchisees will also be made responsible for any unverified connections,” said a senior MHA official.

“A week from now, in case we find a SIM card on a militant that is later not found to be registered under his name or a genuine address, we will not only initiate criminal cases against the franchisee firm that failed to verify the particular connection but will also initiate action against the CMD for allowing the SIM card to get into the wrong hands,” the official warned.

According to the official, the MHA — at a meeting of mobile service providers active in J&K chaired by Union home secretary G K Pillai here on Monday — asked the operators to complete verification of existing connections over the next one week, after which another review will be carried out by the government to check if 100% verification had been achieved. The operators — including Airtel, Aircel, Tata Indicom, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Reliance Comm and BSNL — were also asked to ensure that the ban on bulk SMSes was strictly followed.

The security agencies had recently raised concern over the tardy progress of verification of mobile connections in the Valley, despite a January 2010 assurance by the service providers that all existing connections would be reverified and no new connections would be issued without proper verification.

A DoT check conducted recently found that the verified connections stood at 90% only in the case of BSNL, with the private operators faring poorly with less than 50% verified connections.

The next review meeting between MHA and service providers from J&K will also go into issues such as cutting down the mobile connections allowed in a household to two from the existing limit of six connections per household.