Own Multiple Sim Connections? Telecom Department to disconnect extra sim cards of the subscribers

According to NCRB, there was a steep rise in cyber crime in the last quarter. To keep a check on financial crimes, pesky calls and fraudulent activities, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) issued an order of deactivating extra sim cards in and across the Indian Subcontinent. The department has rigged out regulations of verifying extra connections of the users who already use nine sim cards, and the number has been restricted to six in case of Jammu Kashmir, North East and Assam.

Upon the order issued in December the subscribers need to choose the connections they want to keep and deactivate the other activated sim cards present with the person. This order has been implemented from the month of January pan India.

According to the officials of (DoT) "If it is discovered during the analysis and survey that an individual subscriber has more than the allowed connections then the mobile connections would be flagged for re-verification. Also this step is going to help with tracking and reducing the number of financial crimes and bogus fraudulent calls."

The verification process has to be done by the individual within a stipulated period after the issue of the verification order. If the subscribers exercise surrender of the mobile connections then the outgoing call facility would be suspended after 30 days while the incoming calls would be received till 45 days of surrender. An additional 30 days of time would be allowed to NRI and Roaming Users or a physically impared or hospitalized subscribers.

"The stated timelines must be communicated on a regular basis by TSPs to customers of flagged mobile connections by SMS/IVRS/e-mail/app or any other available manner. Subscribers will also be informed on a regular basis as to the cause for the suspension of services" DoT order said.