Ban on pre-paid mobiles in J&K goes

Nearly two and a half months after imposing a ban on prepaid mobile phones in Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre on Thursday lifted its order with immediate effect but put stringent conditions on operators for verification of customers.

The decision to lift the ban was taken after the Centre finalized a "foolproof" plan to ensure proper verification of nearly 38 lakh cell phone subscribers in the state and nearly 20,000 youth employed because of the services, official sources said in New Delhi.

The department of telecommunication has circulated an order to all the service providers in Jammu and Kashmir that the ban on the pre-paid services has been lifted from Jan 21 onwards and they have been told to adhere to the strict norms for issuing the SIM cards or renewing the existing ones.

This ban was imposed on November 1 last year, after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram announced it a week earlier. He had voiced serious security concerns as the service providers had issued several hundreds of SIM cards without proper verifications and those had fallen into the hands of terrorists. Now the service providers have been asked to go in for stringent verification process so that the terrorists cannot access this service. Intelligence services tapping mobile calls had found evidence of communication details from across the border.

The Jammu and Kashmir government was also informed about the lifting of the ban on Thursday morning, before a formal notification by the Central government came. The lifting of the ban has warmed many hearts in Jammu and Kashmir, especially the youth who were availing this service in huge numbers. Most of the mobile subscribers had the SIM cards of Airtel , BSNL and Tata Indicom.

- Asian Tribune -