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| Govt to review pre-paid cell services in Jammu Kashmir | | |
Early Times Report
Jammu, Aug 22: Following reports that subversives, including activists of Lashkar-i-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen, were misusing cell phone services in Jammu and Kashmir by communicating not only instructions from one area to the other but to their handlers across the border the union Home Ministry plans to lay down specific guidelines to the telecom service providers.
Informed sources said that the telecom service providers were to be told to either monitor the use of the cell phone services or start curtailing pre-paid services.
Official sources said that the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has decided to call a meeting of the top executives of telecom service providers offering services in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday to discuss various security-related issues with them. "Union Home Minister will chair a meeting with Chief Executive Officers or Chief Operating Officers of telecom services providers providing services in Jammu & Kashmir on August 25," a communique from the Ministry of Home Affairs said.
According to sources, the government will ask telecom companies to stop providing pre-paid services or provide the necessary infrastructure to monitor the communications.
The meeting will be attended by senior executives from various operators, including Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor, Vodafone Essar Cellular Managing Director Sunil Sood and Reliance Communications CEO CS Rao.
Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar will also attend the meeting.
In trouble-torn Jammu and Kashmir, there are seven telecom players, including BSNL, Bharti airtel, Aircel, Idea, Reliance Communications, Tata Indicom and Vodafone. These telecom companies provide post-paid, as well as pre-paid mobile services in the state.
Jammu and Kashmir has 56.69 lakh mobile subscribers, comprising 5.6 lakh post-paid and 50 lakh pre-paid users, as per the latest available data.
The state government had earlier banned SMSes following unrest in Kashmir last year.
It, however, revoked the SMS ban on all post-paid connections on December 22, though the blanket ban on SMSes remains in the case of pre-paid services.
The Ministry of Communications had recently extended permission for continuance of pre-paid mobile services in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and the North-East telecom service areas for a period of two years, subject to the condition that the existing security conditions and safeguards already stipulated by the licencor would continue to be adhered to.
It had also said that in no case would pre-paid mobile connections be usable beyond March 31, 2013, on the basis of this permission, without Government clearance. |
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