Verification mandatory for SIM card dealers

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

SIM card dealers mandatory and discontinued the provision of bulk connections, in a bid to curb online financial frauds, communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday. The telecom operators will do mandatory registration of franchisee, point of sale (PoS) agents and distributors. This will help in eliminating the rogue PoS who by fraudulent practices issue SIMs to anti-social/anti-national elements.

The PoS registration process includes indisputable verification by telcos. «The process mandates written agreement between the PoS and the licensees. If a PoS indulges in any illegal activities, it will be terminated and blacklisted for a period of three years.

All the existing PoS will be registered as per this process by licensees within 12 months,» the government said. Further, to prevent misuse of printed Aadhaar, the demographic details will mandatorily be captured by scanning QR code of 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.

Sharing the action taken by the government to curb frauds, the minister said that 5.2 million mobile connections have been disconnected while 67,000 dealers have been blacklisted and 300 FIRs filed against SIM card dealers since May 2023. The minister said WhatsApp on its own has blocked around 66,000 accounts that were involved in fraudulent activities. «These two reforms will be able to address the issue of cyber fraud and consumer protection,» Vaishnaw said.

He added that going forward, digital KYC will be made mandatory for everybody. Already around 80% people avail digital KYC. The minister said that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has also discontinued the provision of bulk