Govt forbids purchase of bulk SIMs, mandates dealer police verification

"SIM dealers who are found complicit in such schemes will be fined Rs 10 lakh"

In an effort to stop scams involving mobile phone sim cards, the government announced that bulk sim card sales will be prohibited and that telecom companies must register franchisees, agents, and distributors or points of sale in addition to police verification for sim dealers.

The bulk purchase of SIM cards has been fully banned, according to telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, however connections or SIMs for enterprises, corporations, or events are still allowed. Each individual sim owner will be subject to the know-your-customer(KYC) standards.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated, "The data and evidence we saw showed us that there is complicity among dealers in cyber frauds, where attackers buy numbers in bulk, use them to call and defraud people, and quickly move on to another number."

According to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the government has blacklisted 67,000 SIM card vendors and has since made biometric and police verification necessary for these vendors.

"SIM dealers who are found complicit in such schemes will be fined Rs 10 lakh," the minister added.

Firms will be able to obtain any number of mobile connections, but only after doing a thorough KYC on each of their end-users. Sim cards won't be activated until end users have successfully completed their KYC and the firm's address and premises have been inspected physically.

In the Aadhaar E-KYC process, facial based biometric authentication is also allowed in addition to thumb imprint and iris-based authentication. On the basis of one identification, people can still take nine SIM cards.

Following 90 days, a new client will be assigned the mobile number in case of a disconnect. For the purpose of changing his SIM card, a subscriber must complete a full KYC process. Additionally, the ability to send and receive SMSes will be disabled for a period of 24 hours.

May 2023 saw the introduction of the Sanchar Saathi portal for reporting lost or stolen mobile devices and disabling them, as well as the AI-based programme ASTR for locating unauthorised mobile connections.

Since then, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has been able to find 6.6 million unauthorised mobile connections, cut off 5.2 million, blacklist 67,000 points of sale, and block 17,000 mobile devices.