Police response seen slow in helping DoT recover lost mobiles

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

DoT) initiatives to help consumers retrieve or block stolen or lost mobile phones as well as identify fake connections are hitting a roadblock due to slow police action in the states. As per data made available by DoT of all the states and Union territories (UTs) of India, just 10-20% of the traced phones were being recovered on an average. As per officials, DoT is facing a hurdle in the issue of fake connections too, as states have to initiate penal action against the fraudsters by lodging FIRs.

But so far, only 181 FIRs have been lodged covering 1575 fraudulent point of sale (POS) holders out of total 44,582 identified by DoT for being involved in sale of fake connections. Telecom secretary K Rajaraman wrote a letter to chief secretaries and director generals of police of all states and UTs a couple of weeks ago to highlight the slow pace of action sharing statistics. Some states like West Bengal have been lagging far behind when it comes to initiating action against the fraudsters.

For instance, DoT officials said of the around 4 million fake connections that have been identified and blocked, nearly half are in West Bengal but not a single FIR has been filed by the state government. A query sent by ET in this regard to the West Bengal chief secretary remained unanswered. While the DoT can identify and block a fake connection, penal action has to be taken by the police.

As per data made available on the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR), which was launched on May 16 this year, so far, 2,75,028 mobiles have been traced across the country, but only 17,850 devices have been recovered. The number of mobiles blocked stands at 6,35,331. CEIR is an artificial intelligence (AI)-based portal to check the authenticity