According to Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, the government has blocked 66,000 fraudulent WhatsApp accounts and also blacklisted 67,000 SIM card dealers. Not only this, more than 300 FIRs have been registered against fraudsters and 52 lakh phone connections have been deactivated.
Further, the minister says that “around 8 lakh bank wallet accounts used by fraudsters have been frozen”.
The new rules have been announced with the aim of preventing fraudulent sales. The circular said that these rules will come into effect from October 1 and telecom operators will have to register all ‘Point of Sale’ (POS) before September 30. DoT has also announced a fine of Rs 10 lakh on telecom operators for selling SIM cards through unregistered dealers.
Merchants selling SIM cards will now have to get biometric verification done along with police verification. Besides, registration has also been made mandatory. This will be the responsibility of the telecom operator, who will ensure verification of the merchants. If this rule is not followed then the government has made a provision for a fine of Rs 10 lakh.
At present, the government has given 12 months time to the traders selling SIM cards in which they can get their verification done and get registered. With the help of this move, the government will try to identify, blacklist and weed out fraudulent traders from the system.
If the customer is going to buy a new SIM card on an old number, then the QR code printed on Aadhaar will be scanned, on the basis of which the demographic data of the customer will be recorded.
