The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has reportedly extended the deadline by another two months, till March 31, 2025, to register franchisees, agents and distributors of mobile phone operators that will be allowed to issue SIM cards and enrol customers.
The government had made verification of SIM card dealers mandatory in August 2023, in a bid to curb online financial frauds and spam communications. It was decided that all franchisee, point of sale (PoS) agents and distributors would be registered by the telecom operators in 12 months. Since then, a few extensions have been granted by the DoT to allow the telcos to undertake the verification process. Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Limited had registered their agents and distributors by January 31, 2025. Meanwhile, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) sought more time as it needed to sort out some software issues at its end.
The mandate of verification would help in eliminating the rogue PoS who by fraudulent practices issue SIMs to anti-social or anti-national elements. While the private telcos have 400,000 to 600,000 PoS across the country, the number for BSNL is a bit lower.
As per the government mandate, the PoS registration process includes indisputable verification by telcos. As per the mandate, which would now come into force from April 1, 2025, there should be a written agreement between the PoS and the telecom operator. If a PoS indulges in any illegal activities, it will be terminated and blacklisted for a period of three years.
Further, to prevent misuse of printed Aadhaar, the demographic details will mandatorily be captured by scanning QR code of the printed Aadhaar. In case of disconnection of a mobile number, it will not be allocated to any other new customer till expiry of 90 days.
Additionally, the rules mandate police verification of PoS in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Northeast telecom circles. A penalty of Rs 1 million per PoS per instance would be levied if any existing PoS is found enrolling customers without registration.
The government has taken various measures to curb online financial frauds and spam communications. In addition to the verification of PoS, the DoT has amended the existing know your customer (KYC) instructions, which include discontinuation of earlier bulk connections framework and introduction of business connections framework where the KYC of each end-user is made mandatory before activation. Further, a robust KYC process for SIM swap or replacement has been introduced.
