Telecos penalised Rs32 crore over unverified mobile phone users

The government has imposed a penalty totalling Rs32 crore on mobile operators, including state-owned BSNL and MTNL, in 2008-09 for failing to adhere to the subscriber verification norms, a Department of Telecom official said.

The government has set a Rs1,000 penalty on each unverified subscriber and the number of such subscribers has totalled about 3.2 lakh in 2008-09, the official said.

Under the system of graded penalty introduced by the DoT in April this year, operators have to pay Rs50,000 per subscriber if more than 20 per cent of their subscriber base has no valid user identity.

However, the penalty will remain at Rs1,000 per user if the number of unverified subscribers to a mobile service remains below 5 per cent of its user base in each of the circles.

With the number of mobile phone users in the country growing fast, industry expects the number of unverified subscribers to swell.