In a letter to the Secretary, Department of Telecom (DoT), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), has recommended the DoT to use Post Offices for issuing a mobile user card to every individual and have traceability of the customer, to avoid misuse of phone connections by anti social elements and terrorists.
The letter says that since an average of 8 million new customers is added to India's phone customer base every month, it is very difficult for the operators to keep track of authenticity of sale of such a large number of connections spread over length and breath of the country. Additionally, it is almost impossible to ensure safe storage of customer application forms (CAF), which would be more than 100 crore considering the fact that there are 330 million customers in the country today.
"Keeping in mind, the security aspects, CII recommends that the DoT should mandate Post Offices for issuing a Phone User Card to authentic persons/ subscribers who wish to get authorized for buying the new connection(s). P&T has excellent presence across India. There are about 155,516 post offices in India. Each post office caters to population of 7,046 persons and serves an area of 21.10 sq km with average distance to be traveled for postal facilities is 2.5 km. Out of these approximately 1,00,000 are villages. Post offices that are manned by Extra Departmental Offices (EBDO) are already channelised for disbursement of old age pension and wages under the NREGS. With some training, these functionaries will be in a position to undertake basic documentation for the each customers," the letter read.
"Thus, keeping in view the reach of post office in rural areas and small towns in the country, it is suggested that DoT engages post office I EBDOs for desired documentation for provisioning of phone connections through authentication process for each person wishing to become subscriber," the letter read.
