Mobilink is striving to meet the government deadline set for re-verification of Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) through Biometric Verification System (BVS) as 15 million of the total 38 million active SIMs on the company network have been verified so far. This was stated by Omar Manzur Director Corporate Communications Mobilink while talking to media persons, here on Thursday.
Manzur said that besides revenue loss, Mobilink suffered a loss of $15 million on hiring human resource, operational and infrastructure up-gradation of the existing network for the re-verification drive through BVS while the overall loss to the industry stands at Rs 5 billion on revamping their network.
Mobilink had deployed 19,000 devices across the country for re-verification of SIMs however after the drive started on January 12, additional 4500 devices were deployed and the number is increasing day-by-day. He further said to reach rural areas to re-verify SIMs and meet the government deadline, 700 mobile units and 700 kiosks are being utilised.
He further said that about Mobilink share in SIMs disowned during the drive is about 30 percent which is also its share in the overall market. However, he hoped that not a single SIM of the total 38 million active SIMs on the Mobilink network would be blocked and all would be verified during the stipulated timeline. Replying to a question, Manzur said that SOP for the overseas Pakistanis to re-verify their SIMs is yet to be prepared by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), however the industry is in consultation with the authority and likely to come up with a solution soon in this regard. He further said that during the re-verification drive through BVS, the industry is also facing challenges with respect to re-verification of SIMs belonging to old people as well as carpenters etc, as no SoP have been developed in this regard. He quoted several examples where it was not possible for the staff to re-verify SIMs of aged people and others where wrinkles were developed in their hands.
Manzur clarified the Company does not take additional charges from customers who visit to the company franchise or main offices. However they have to pay Rs 10 per CNIC at retailer shop. This amount is also not being charged by the Company but goes to the retailers. Manzur said that strict actions have been proposed against those retailers who take more than Rs 10 per CNIC.
He said that those customers whose CNIC was registered with Nadra before 2005 and facing issues in re-verification their SIMs through BVS, must go to Nadra offices to re-verify their identity and then re-verify SIMs as it is a technical issue and to be solved by the Nadra. He further said that Mobilink has engaged polio female workers for running door-to-door campaign to verify SIMs through BVS in Shezadpur, Hyderabad and the campaign would be expanded to other parts of the country.
Comments
Comments are closed.