Using a single national identity card, 14,117 mobile SIMs were registered.
A government verification of around one crore SIM (subscriber identity module) cards made the astonishing discovery.
Disclosing the figure, State Minister for Post and Telecommunication
Tarana Halim yesterday said around 75 percent SIM cards, out of the
verified one crore, were not registered properly.
“We have found around 14,117 SIM cards that were registered using a
single national identity card number,” she said at a press conference
after a meeting with high officials of mobile phone operators at her
Secretariat office.
The fake SIMs are obstructing government efforts to check crime committed using mobile phones, she said.
There are 12.87 crore active mobile phone subscribers in the country,
according to latest statistics of the Bangladesh Telecommunication
Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
The six mobile carriers have so far submitted information of only
99,92,500 SIMs to the NID project of the Election Commission for
verification.
Expressing disappointment with the carriers, Tarana said they have so
far found that only 23,43,680 SIMs were registered properly.
The verification of mobile SIMs started on September 13.
The decision for re-registration and verification of SIMs was made as
the government decided to prepare a new database of subscribers.
Meanwhile, carriers will start sending texts to their subscribers
from October 15 asking them to provide information about their SIMs.
If the information they provide do not match, the subscribers would have to register their SIMs again.
