What are the changes to the process for sale of SIM cards?

Source: The post is based on the article “What are the changes to the process for sale of SIM cards?”  published in The Hindu on 31st August 2023

What is the News?

The Union Minister for Telecommunications has introduced two reforms to tackle the menace of cybercrimes and financial fraud.

These reforms are meant to strengthen the Sanchar Saathi Portal.

What is Sanchar Saathi Portal?

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What are the two reforms introduced to tackle the menace of cybercrimes and financial fraud?

Reform on Point of Sale (PoS):

Franchisees, agents, and distributors of SIM cards (Point of Sale or PoS) must now be registered with telecom network operators.

Operators are responsible for verifying the PoS and conducting mandatory police verification of dealers.

Existing SIM card providers have 12 months to comply with these registration requirements.

If a PoS is involved in illegal activities, their agreement will be terminated, they will be blacklisted for three years, and they will face a penalty of ₹10 lakh.

Bulk SIM Cards Reform:

The reforms replaced the system of ‘bulk procurement’ of SIM cards (by businesses, corporates or those meant for specific events) with a system of entailing ‘business’ connections — sizeable procurement by a registered business entity or enterprise. 

This means that businesses can procure any number of connections.But it would be subject to completing KYC requirements for all end-users.In other words, the final user— the executive who would be holding the connection — would have to undergo the KYC procedure.

In order to prevent the misuse of printed Aadhaar, the provisions mandate that demographic details would be required by scanning the QR code of the printed Aadhaar.

Further, in case of disconnection of a mobile number, it would not be allocated to any other customer for 90 days.