Phone cos told to reverify J&K users in a week

NEW DELHI: The Centre has asked mobile phone service providers in J&K to ensure 100% re-verification of customers within a week and strictly observe the ban on bulk SMS.

Unhappy over the shoddy pace of re-verification, home secretary G K Pillai took up the issue with Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Reliance Comm and BSNL representatives on Monday.

A sample study by DoT to establish how well operators were carrying out their January, 2010, assurance on 100% re-verification of subscriber base threw up worrying results. Only BSNL reported 90% re-verification levels. Private cellular networks fared poorly, with re-verification levels as low as 35% in some cases.

Mr Pillai is said to have expressed the security establishment’s angst at poor implementation of re-verification norms notified by DoT. MHA insisted that mobile service providers of the state get their house in order and have each and every connection re-verified in the next one week. Even BSNL, which re-verified 90% of its subscriber base, has been asked to bring up the levels to 100%.

Operators were asked to identify franchisees who failed to carry out proper re-verification on their behalf, and fire them where needed.

The home ministry also asked operators to ensure strict implementation of the ban on bulk SMS, especially in the light of illegally-generated bulk SMS being blamed for mobilising riotous crowds at short notice.

Incidentally, another proposal to limit the number of connections per household in J&K from 6 to 2 was raised at the meeting. However, there was no discussion on this controversial agenda item, which threatens to cause much inconvenience to medium-to-large Kashmiri families.