KOLKATA: Nearly five million customers could disappear overnight from mobile networks across Assam and the Northeast circles with the telecom department tightening the customer verification rules and ordering a reverification of all existing mobile users in these states.
After Jammu & Kashmir, it’s the 20 million-odd mobile subscribers in Assam and Northeast who’ve come under Department of Telecom’s lens on security grounds.
Under the new rules, mobile customers in Assam and the northeastern states will no longer be able to furnish electricty bills, caste/domicile certificates or even photo-IDs attested by MPs/MLAs and Group A officers to continue using their mobile phones. Instead, they will have to furnish either a passport, an arms licence, a CGHS (central government health service) card, a driving licence, PAN card or a voter ID issued by the Election Commission to stay connected.
Close to a fourth of the 20-million strong combined mobile population of Assam and northeast live in the countryside and do not have these key documents. Top mobile phone companies operating in these circles say that nearly 50 lakh existing mobile users are likely to fail the disclosures test once reverification gets underway from September 13.
In J&K, the cellular base fell by nearly two million overnight after the Centre ordered a reverification last year. The Centre has also banned prepaid connections in J&K. Even text ( SMS) services continue to remain banned in most parts of J&K.
An internal telecom department communiqué to mobile operators viewed by ET notes: “It has been decided to extend the security safeguards applicable to the J&K service area to Assam and Northeast on an experimental basis for six months with immediate effect.”
Justifying the move, a top DoT official said: “Intelligence inputs available with the Centre indicates that mobile phones, especially prepaid connections, are used extensively by militant organisations in the region. It has also been noticed that the implementation process for obtaining mobile connections is very lax. Such laxity has led to the misuse of mobile services by militants. It is based on these findings that the security safeguards applicable to J&K have been extended to Assam and the north-east telecom circles.”
At present, Maxis-controlled Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications (RCOM) and BSNL are the biggest players in Assam and Northeast, who among them control nearly 80% of the local mobile turf. Newer entrants like Vodafone, Idea, Tata Tele and S Tel control the remaining 20%.
Executives with these companies feel DoT’s latest customer reverification drive threatens to not only shave off a sizeable chunk of the mobile subscriber base in these circles, but even scuttle business expansion plans, especially in the rural heartland.