Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: The identities of at least 4.59 crore SIM card users in India is still unknown, said a CAG report tabled in the Parliament on Friday.
The government in 2008 had made it mandatory for compulsory verification of all SIM card subscribers after terrorists used SIM cards issued on fake identity papers to trigger a series of bomb blasts in the country.
The percentage of non-compliance by seven major service providers during the period 2008-12 ranged from 4 percent to 54 percent. Based on this, the penalty worked out during 2012 was more than Rs 4,200 crore, according to the CAG report.
After paying Rs 400 crore, the service providers have refused to pay any further and no action has been initiated so far against them, the CAG said.
Reliance Communication is seen as the biggest violators with non verified customer base of 91.83 lakh and a penalty of Rs 918 crore.
Earlier, the department of telecom in 2006 had imposed a ban on sale of pre-activated SIM cards without verification of subscribers.
It was also made mandatory that the authorised person at the point of sale of such SIM cards record in the application form that he has seen the subscriber and verified the document with the original.
However, due to non-adherence to these guidelines, the government in 2009 through another order made 100 percent verification of subscribers mandatory and enhanced penalty which was Rs 50,000 per unverified subscriber in case of big violators.
