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| J&K for tougher cellular laws | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 28: Making a case for restoration of pre-paid cell phone services, the Jammu and Kashmir government has urged the Center to put in place a tougher policy for the cellular operators instead of banning the service.
Following Union Home Secretary GK Pillai’s visit to Jammu and then his meeting with top executives of the cellphone operators back in capital, recently a high level delegation from J&K led by Chief Secretary SS Kapur and Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda had a discussion the Home Ministry officials on the issue.
During the meeting, chaired by Union Home Secretary G K Pillai, the State maintained that it did not have any issues over the pre-paid ban and they wanted the telecom operators behave in a disciplined manner.
A case was put forward whereby a telecom company had issued several pre-paid SIM cards to an individual on a single working day without any verification, official sources said.
The State Government feels that mere imposition of a financial penalty was not helping the security agencies and that a law needs to be formulated under which stringent action could be taken against erring officials, besides imposing a financial burden on the telecom operators, the sources said.
The Department of Telecom has imposed a penalty of Rs 7.38 crore on the six service providers operating in Jammu and Kashmir from 2008 to November 2009.
State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has asked the Centre to work out a plan as quickly as possible as ban on pre-paid mobile has affected 38 lakh customers, who comprise 60 per cent of total clientele in the State.
Among the suggestions made by the central security agencies and the State Government is that the telecom operators should not issue a single pre-paid connection to any customer until or unless the customer provided reference of a post-paid number or BSNL landline.
Earlier this month, the representatives of cellular service operators were asked by the Government to travel to the State for having discussions with the officials there for fine-tuning the procedures of pre-paid service to customers.
The CEOs of various telecom companies, who had come to attend a meeting chaired by Home Secretary Pillai, were told in categorical terms that Government had no objection in starting the services if a foolproof verification process was ensured by them, the sources said.
Amid security concerns, the Centre had in October banned pre-paid mobile phone connections in the State, sparking widespread protests
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