Non-verified SIMs to be deactivated from May 1: Tarana

State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim on Tuesday reiterated that biometrically unverified SIMs would be deactivated from May 1 after sending notification.

 

"As part of the deactivation process, at first, notification would be sent to the unverified SIMs and then those would be deactivated for one hour and to be repeated the same after 2/1 days. Finally, the SIMs would be deactivated forever if those are not verified biometrically," she said.

 

The state minister came up with this announcement at the opening ceremony of biometric SIM verification booths in secretariat this morning for the government employees. 

 

Customers of all the operators can do their verification at the booths till April 28. 

 

The government started the SIM verification process in December 16 last year and it is scheduled to end by April 30 this year. She mentioned that a total 6.35 crore SIMs, so far, have been completed biometric verification and expressed hope that verification of the remaining SIMs would be done by the stipulated time.

 

Replying to a query regarding extension of time for verification, the state minister said: "verification process has to be completed by April 30." 

 

She said the operators have deployed over 1 lakh biometric devices to complete their work successfully. "If a device verifies 50 SIMs daily, the total number would stand at 50 lakh everyday. So, all the SIMs (if we count over 13 crore) would be verified by the stipulated time." 

 

Tarana Halim also said they would run mass campaign at Dhaka University and other public places for biometric SIM verification.

 

Talking about the rumor of government funding for verification purpose, the state minister said government is spending no money for SIM verification, according to BSS report.

 

"The operators have collected biometric devices and are bearing all the expenditures while the government is only facilitating the process.