New Delhi, May 2: Much to the happiness of mobile users, the government has issued instructions to telecom operators to accept other identification documents apart from Aadhaar to get a new mobile phone SIM.  The other alternative documents include driving licence, passport and voter ID card. According to a report by TOI, all the mobile companies have been asked to follow the instructions “immediately” so that consumers are not inconvenienced.

Aadhaar- the 12-digit unique identification number has become a must-have document in order to avail essential services. Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan was quoted in a TOI report saying that the ministry has issued instructions to all telecom companies, asking them not to deny a SIM card to any individual who does not have an Aadhaar number. “We have asked them to accept other forms of KYC (know your customer) documents, and continue to issue SIM cards,” Sundararajan told TOI.

It must be noted that the Supreme Court has already clarified that Aadhaar is not mandatory for getting SIM cards until it takes a final view. Customers across India have been hassled about the idea of visiting an offline store and standing in long queues to link Aadhaar and Mobile numbers. This latest development will help million of mobile users save time and efforts to visit the offline stores and get the two documents linked.

Earlier, the Government of India had been encouraging the process to link Aadhaar card details of the residents to various services like banks and mobile phone number. Following the instructions of the government, all the telecom operators across the nation have been notifying their respective subscribers.

In wake of the latest development, Rajan Mathews, director-general of industry body COAI was quoted by TOI saying that the communication is still being sent to mobile phone users to encourage them to re-verify their mobile connections. He said no last date for completion of this exercise is to be mentioned in such communication. “All the telecom companies are adhering to telecom ministry guidelines. Hence, they continue to send the message to subscribers to re-verify their mobile connections without mentioning any last date”, Mathews added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 02, 2018 09:51 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).