The robust subscriber verification process, taken up by cellular operators, has now earned them a breather. A government-industry committee has decided that no penalty should be imposed on the companies for not reaching the 100% user verification target.
While acknowledging that all service providers were working hard to achieve the target, the committee suggested that companies could set periodic targets but warned them against not meeting those. It said penalty should be considered only if improvements in the verification percentages do not take place even after the warnings.
The development is a welcome relief for the cellular operators. As per a DoT order last year, a penalty of Rs 1,000 per unverified subscriber is applicable.
According to available data, subscriber verification has improved from about 65% a year ago, to around 87%. Although the figure is not yet considered satisfactory, the committee has accepted that service providers have worked hard and disconnected about 9.4 million unverified subscribers from the network.
Subscriber verification issue had drawn attention last year with growing instances of terrorist attacks in which mobile phones were used. The government had found that cellular operators were providing connections without proper verification. As per the rules laid down, both pre-paid and post-paid connections have to be activated only once a subscriber submits identity and residential proof and the same is physically verified by the service providers.
The firms were even supposed to complete verification of existing subscribers. The matter took a different dimension last year when a section of media carried reports about a scribe acquiring connections in the name of home secretary and director, IB.