COAI lauds Narendra Modi government’s decision

NEW DELHI: The industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has welcomed the decision of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications, to allow the use of Aadhar e-KYC service of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), for issuing connections to mobile subscribers in India.

Besides ensuring security compliance and customer convenience, adoption of the e-KYC service in issuing new mobile connections will bring in more efficiency to the system. It is also a step in the right direction for the environment.

Speaking about the DoT’s decision, Rajan S. Mathews, Director General, COAI, said, “We firmly believe that the adoption of this process will make the subscriber verification process extremely robust and effective. The simplicity of this system also gives us reason to believe that it will benefit everyone — consumers, service providers and also TERM Cells and LEAs. Moreover, it will give a big boost to the Digital India, mission of the Government of India apart from saving lakhs of trees and addressing the extremely important issue of national security. The efforts of the DoT Secretary, JS Deepak, are extremely commendable and this is truly an important step forward, towards creating a truly connected and digitally empowered India and will be tremendously helpful in deepening rural mobile penetration. ”

Adoption of an identification-based process will usher in many benefits. For one, it will address the problem of fraudulent elements getting telephone connections on forged or fake documents. A biometric- or iris-based verification system will provide a foolproof method to eliminate such fraudulent activations. This will also allay fears in the minds of customers of their documents being misused.

An Aadhar-based activation process will also bring in process efficiency by supporting the mammoth infrastructure otherwise required for connecting millions of verified citizens. Moreover, for an industry that takes its environmental responsibilities seriously, an e-KYC-based process will benefit the environment.

“It will save lakhs of trees year-on-year and reduce waste considerably," he added.

Mathews said, “This will be a major step for the telecom sector’s contribution to an environment-friendly green initiative in terms of reduction in paper, thereby saving trees.”