President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Muhammad Ijaz Abbasi, in a meeting with Director Enforcement Colonel Shafiq Abbasi, has underlined the need for taking strict measures to control spread of mobile SIMs to unidentified persons.
According to a press release, he said there was no policy for the issuance of restricted number of SIMs to individual user, as a result single individual users have got issued large number of SIMs on single name. He said that crime rate was increasing because of issuance of a large number of SIMs to unidentified persons, adding that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) should devise a clear policy for the issuance of SIMs to identified person through verification by Nadra.
President ICCI suggested that before providing a connection, online verification should be done and maximum Five SIMs may be allowed to one user. Muhammad Ijaz Abbasi said that automatic activation of answering machine on PTCL landline on not attending a call is totally unjustified, because on this the caller has to bear call charges.
He said that PTCL should provide this facility on demand only, and it should be removed from all landline numbers, the press release added. He further said that charges on local landline calls two rupees per two minutes by PTCL put a burden on the monthly bills and demanded that duration should be increased to 5 minutes instead of 2 minutes.
President ICCI assured of his full cooperation to PTA for controlling issuance of SIMs to unidentified persons and stressed that no company or franchisee should be allowed to allot a SIM to unidentified person. Shafiq Abbasi, Director Enforcement told the ICCI president that mobile companies have issued a huge number of SIMs to unidentified persons and it is becoming difficult to trace out the exact user of SIM.
He said PTA has cancelled the license of about 10 franchise companies, to control circulation of SIMs of unidentified persons and informed that according to a survey 60 per cent crimes were managed through mobile phone. At the end of the meeting PTA and ICCI singed an agreement to instruct mobile companies to put a check on the issuance of SIMs to unidentified persons, it added.