Pre-paid service: Telecom operators in J&K again under scanner

The telecom operators in Jammu and Kashmir have once again come under scanner with Government objecting to the arbitrary manner in which the re-verification of pre-paid subscribers had been done in the state.
    
A senior official of the Union Home Ministry conveyed to the telecom operators the Government's concerns over "lapses" in reverifying the pre-paid mobile subscribers which could have serious security repercussions, official sources said.
    
The Ministry got into action as Union home minister P Chidambaram was surprised over the speed in which re-verification of nearly 1.6 lakh customers was done in only 24 days which included two gazetted holidays and a eight-day long strike in the Kashmir valley.

The Home Ministry wanted to know about the mechanism adopted by the telecom operators in re-verifying the pre-paid mobile customers after the Centre allowed resumption of services on January 22 after a months-long ban.
    
The Centre had imposed the ban on pre-paid mobile phone services on November last and Chidambaram had then said if the service providers come up with a fool-proof plan of 100 per cent verification and the ministry was satisfied with it, then
the issue may be revisited.

The Home Ministry has now sought to know how many special camps had been organised by the telecom operators during the last three weeks and what all documents had been taken from the customers for re-verifying the connections.
    
The home minister had expressed his surprise at a meeting yesterday after the security agencies informed him that nearly 1.6 lakh customers had been re-verified.