The Indian Department of Telecommunication (DoT) circulated a slew of measures for telecom service providers to simplify the process of re-verification of mobile numbers, asking them to re-verify the Indian mobile connections of foreign nationals and NRIs. It has also instructed players to operationalise the process for this section of subscribers by January 1, 2018.
“Subscribers should be able to re-verify their mobile connections through these alternative methods by January 1, 2018,” a December 1 DoT order said.
The move comes after various representations had been received from Non-Resident India (NRIs) and Overseas Indians and foreign nationals citing difficulties in re-verification of their Indian mobile connections arising as these particular subscribers were not eligible to enrol for the 12-digital biometric Aadhaar Card identifier.
The procedure has been spelt out for re-verification of mobile connections of foreign nationals, as well as NRI subscribers who either do not have Aadhaar or their mobile number is not registered with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
The department has also given the re-verification procedure for senior citizens who are above 70 years not having Aadhaar, are unable to do biometric authentication or are physically challenged.
All you need to do is fill in an online form and submit your proof of residence, age, handicap and select your appropriate category.
In addition to this, you need to submit the details of a “trusted person”. To verify the user’s identity, you need to furnish the details of the person that includes the unique 12-digit unique Aadhaar number. A single trusted person can re-verify the mobile numbers of five other users.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has said that the new processes notified today would benefit subscribers, but the procedure for NRIs and senior citizens was complex. COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said in a statement: “The notified process for NRIs and senior citizens is still very complex and we would work with DoT to ease it for the consumers and subscribers.”
Mathews also expressed disappointment over the telecom department only issuing an IVR-based process for OTP authentication.
"We had submitted an option of a web-based process as well and that could have also been allowed, in line with the process for NRIs and senior citizens for greater consumer ease," Mathews said.
The mobile re-verification through all these above-mentioned methods is available until January 1, 2018, as per the DoT. However, the deadline for re-verification is February 6.
