The Senate Sub-Committee on Interior voiced its concerned over issuance of cell phones on fake and bogus NIC cards. The committee on Monday discussed faulty procedure after it came to notice that cellular phone companies were issuing connections on a large scale, for the sake of minting money from customers and thus expanding their business.
The committee, therefore, asked the mobile phone companies to stop issuing Sims to consumers on fake NIC cards At the same time, the committee also reviewed measures adopted by law enforcing agencies to plug the loopholes in the existing system of issuing Sims to the subscribers.
There is dire need to enforce a co-ordinated and a comprehensive system of checks and balance and checking the rising incidents of terrorism, dacoity and kidnapping for ransom in different parts of the country.
The need to streamlining the system of issue of mobile phone connections would improve law and order situation in the country. Sims should be issued only on the basis of computerised national identity cards, and a separate cell at the Nadra office should expedite verification process of cell phones.
The Committee received a detailed briefing from senior officials of Interior Ministry, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) as well as Nadra, where a study was in process to verify the connections. Cellular phone companies were directed to verify the subscribers' data from Nadra.
The committee recommended that show cause notices should be issued to defaulting companies in case they failed to follow these guidelines to issue Sims only to bona fide subscribers.