The Union Home Ministry’s ban on pre-paid cellphones in Jammu and Kashmir, that came into effect today, has not only left many angry in the state but also put around 20,000 youths in danger of finding themselves without a job.
“Around 2 lakh people will be hit by this ban. Our 10,000 members who had been directly dependent on pre-paid connections are going to be jobless,” says Dar.
The mobile companies — Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Airtel, Aircel, Reliance, Vodaphone and Tata Indicom — currently have a monthly business of around Rs 150 crore in the state, most of it in pre-paid cell connections. Out of 45 lakh connections in J&K, 39 lakh are pre-paid. While Airtel launched its pre-paid service in April 2004, the BSNL had started the same in June 2005.
Sources in the state’s telecom sector say there are around 400 customer touch points, 350 major distributors and around 48,000 small and big retail outlets across the state, apart from the innumerable number of mobile selling and repair shops. The Home Ministry’s decision is likely to affect everyone linked to these businesses.
The Omar Abdullah government has strongly opposed the move and has decided to take up the matter with the Centre. The opposition PDP too has termed the step contrary to the forward-looking developmental agenda for the state outlined by PM Singh recently.
Pre-paid connections will not be stopped immediately and the subscribers would be allowed to exhaust their already purchased talk time and text service. However, the phone companies cannot recharge existing pre-paid connections or issue new SIM cards.
Prepaid connections are easier to get as any person can get one issued on the basis of a single document; the verification is mostly done on phone after the connection has been activated. New connections are cheaper, sometimes even free, and recharge amounts can be as low as Rs 5. Many use prepaid connections with lifetime validity just to receive calls, never bothering to recharge their balance.
Post-paid connections, on the other hand, require an applicant to submit proof of residence and identity, often more than one, followed by a verification process. A new connection can cost at least Rs 500 followed by a montly bill of at least around Rs 250, which is unavoidable.
“During the NDA government, when long-distance calls were banned, we had lost all our business. But once cellphone companies came to the state, we shifted to this business,” Dar said. “Now we are again on the road.”
A vendor for Airtel, Aircel and BSN at Uri, Rayees Ahmad said he would have to close down his business. “My cousin and I are running our entire households on this business. I am unable to think what to do now,” Ahmad said. Tariq Ahmad Dar, a vendor at Sopore, said each household in his area had four-five pre-paid connections. “My sales were around Rs 5,000 a day. Now everything has finished.”
The Centre’s move is likely to have another fallout, which may not be visible immediately. A majority of the pre-paid subscribers in the state are between the ages of 18 and 35 years, and the service had fuelled a mobile boom, in its wake bringing social changes among this section of the population.
Young couples found the pre-paid service a cheap and “safe” way, away from parents’ prying eyes, to stay in touch. “This ban will end my relationship of two years. There is no way I can afford a post-paid phone. We will not be able to talk,” an engineering student said. “I bought 300 recharge cards and have 6,000 minutes on my phone.” His friends, he says, feel the same.
Shaista (last name withheld) calls the ban a madness. “Because they cannot handle 700 militants, they are holding the entire population hostage,” she said. “How can they stop our conversation?”
Interestingly, though the official reason to ban pre-paid is security concerns, monitoring such connections used by militant groups has helped the government’s counter-insurgency efforts in the Valley to a large extent. If the tapping of phones has helped thwart many attacks, the entire top brass of the Hizbul Mujahideen is said to have been wiped out through surveillance of their mobile phones.
According to sources, police zeroed in on Hizbul chief Gazi Misbah-ud-Din; Laskhar Divisional Commander, South Kashmir, Aatif; top Jaish commander Abu Hamza; Harkat Divisional Commander Sajjad Afghani; Lashkar’s Divisional Commander, North Kashmir, Abu Huzaifa; as well as a Jaish divisional commander in Jammu’s Janipur neighbourhood all through mobile tracking.
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