sim-card-proxySTAFF REPORT IBD: Cellular phone operators have incurred a loss of over Rs 3.75 billion through blocking of 15 million unregistered, unauthorized and unused SIMs on the directives of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) during the last few months.

The operators losses of these SIMs from their networks primarily on the account of activation charges of Rs 250 per SIM paid to the government from their own pockets on behalf of their customers who are no more with them due to illegal ownerships and prolonged inactivated subscriptions.

The operators were asked to expedite the process of rectifying the data of the subscribers along with cleansing of the unauthorized SIM from the overall base in order to prevent misuse of SIM and keep control over criminal activities in the country.

According to sources, five mobile companies identified subscribers of 20 million out of 123.5 million SIMs on their networks, however, they have failed to complete their tasks and continue to work on the rectification of the data till yet.

The number of overall cellular phone subscribers decreased to 120.9 million by February-end from 121.9 million from November 2012 which showed that all operators lose their customers who were not documented in their systems.

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