ISLAMABAD, April 26: The Senate Standing Committee on Interior took the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to task here on Saturday for not going after multiple and unverifiable SIM (subscriber identity module) holders and fixed a deadline to block all unverified mobile phone connections in the country by May 22.
“I have asked mobile phone regulator to strictly deal with cellular companies in case of violation of Senate committee directions by slapping Rs350 million fine or even revoking their licences to operate in the country if the situation is not rectified,” Senator Muhammad Talha Mahmood, who presided over the meeting, told Dawn.
He said that non-verified SIMs were a matter of great concern in view of deteriorating law and order situation in the country.
The committee was formed to look into the matter of non-verified SIMs, procedure of SIM issuance and ascertain reasons for non-verification.
The committee expressed concern over PTA’s role, observing that it did not seem to be ‘interested in regulating the practice of verifying subscribers’ data’.
The committee ordered the PTA to force all mobile phone operators to submit a complete record of their subscribers’ data to Nadra by May 22.
Out of a total of 81 million mobile phone subscribers, an alarming number of 7.4 million SIMs have been issued by cellular companies on fake or non-verifiable documents while Nadra has no details of 35 million SIMs in the country.
Although the PTA has instructed mobile operators to verify their data of subscribers with Nadra, it is not being complied with strictly. According to some reports, the PTA has not defined parameters to check the mobile subscribers’ data on a regular basis provided by the mobile phone companies.
The meeting was attended by PTA Chairman Shahzada Alam, Nadra Chairman Saleem Moeen, Interior Secretary Kamal Shah and Additional Secretary of Interior Zafeer Abbasi.
A four-member sub-committee comprising PTA and Nadra chairmen and secretaries of interior and IT was also set up to establish an online verification system of all subscribers besides coming up with a code to discourage unethical advertisements by mobile phone operators in media.
The committee took exception to softness of the regulator towards the operators despite the fact that PTA regulations forbade issuance of more than 10 SIMs to any individual, but it found instances where scores of SIMs were issued on a single document. “No unverifiable SIM should be active unless all necessary documentation is completed,” Senator Talha said.
The committee also called for an early legislation to empower the authority to get tough with all law breakers and suggested that the law should be devised by parliament in a way to award at least a two-year jail term in addition to the usual punishment awarded under the penal code to a criminal for committing a crime by using a fake SIM.
The committee has also ordered that fresh audit reports of all mobile phone operators should be on its table in three days. “I would like to hire services of professional chartered accountants to scrutinise these reports so that the country could learn whether the mobile phone companies, despite their claims, were actually investing or taking money out of the country,” he said.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/27/2008
