The Dhaka Times Desk Biometric SIM re-registration process ends today at 12 pm. The SIMs which are not registered will be closed from tomorrow 1st June. If a customer wants to reactivate these SIMs that have been closed, a customer has to pay Tk 150 to Tk 200.
According to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, users will have to pay this additional amount as a penalty for not registering the SIM within the stipulated time. However, the earlier strict stance has been somewhat relaxed. Earlier, BTRC had decided that the SIMs closed from June 1 will remain frozen for the next 2 months. That is, the user will not get a chance to activate it through registration for the next 2 months. After the lapse of 2 months it was decided that the SIM can be re-activated as per the prescribed rules i.e. spending 150-200 rupees.
However, in a departure from the previous rules, BTRC is now saying that any SIM which has been closed after completing the registration as per the prescribed rules can be re-activated. No need to wait for 2 months. It is reported that yesterday (Monday) an instruction has been sent in this regard to the mobile phone operators.
BTRC Secretary and Spokesperson Sarwar Alam told the media, 'Considering the interests of the customers, the deadline for SIM registration has been extended by 1 month. Those who have not re-registered their SIM after the extension of time, will have to activate the SIM only by verifying their identity through the biometric system. In this case, the prescribed rules of BTRC will be applicable.
BTRC rule is that if a SIM is closed for 18 months or 540 days continuously, it no longer belongs to the customer. After 15 months or 450 days, the mobile phone operators issue a notice requesting the subscriber to activate the inactive connection within the next (three months) 90 days. Thus, if the SIM is not activated within a total period of 18 months, the current user no longer owns it. The same rule will be applicable for connections that will be closed from tomorrow (June 1).
It has been said that currently the price of buying a new connection using biometric system is Tk 150 to Tk 200 depending on the operator. Government gets Rs 100 as SIM tax. The remaining amount is taken by the operators as the cost of the SIM.
It should be noted that till Monday, 10 crore 48 lakh 65 thousand SIMs have been registered by biometric system. The total number of active SIMs in the country is 13 crore 19 lakh. Accordingly, 79 percent active SIMs have been registered by biometric system till yesterday (Monday).
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