It’s time you get your Aadhaar Card number ready as soon you will need to re-verify your current mobile connection through Aadhaar based eKYC process. Further, this will also extend to new subscribers and will also be implemented to other services such as Banks etc. Department of Telecom (DoT) has issued an order to all telecom operators for the re-verification process. Further, COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) is expected to sit with other authorities to finalise the whole procedure which is expected to be completed by end of this year.
Currently, India has over one billion mobile connection subscribers which will all be required to re-verify through Aadhaar-based eKYC process.
What is Aadhaar based eKYC process?
Aadhaar-based eKYC (Know Your Customer) is an online paperless process of subscribing to a service by sharing all the information such as name, address, age etc all over the internet. To explain the process, you need to provide your Aadhaar card number to your telecom operator after which it will verify all the information through your Biometrics and will issue you the mobile connection.
What do you need to do to re-verify your current mobile connection?
As of now, you don’t need to do anything. DoT has directed all the telecom operators to start pushing the information to its subscribers via print and electronic advertisements and SMS. So, expect an SMS or an ad regarding the same which will then direct you to the instructions required to be followed to complete the process.
To explain this process, your telecom operator will soon send you a verification-code to first ensure that the SIM is present with you physically. Once, verifies, the eKYC process will then commence and will be similar to the one shared above.
A notification issued by DoT read – “After the completion of the eKYC process, before updating or overwriting the old subscriber detail in database with the data received through eKYC process, the licensee will seek confirmation from the subscriber about the re-verification of his/her mobile number after 24 hours through SMS,”
How will this help in the long term?
The major advantage of this process being mandatory to each subscriber will be eliminating all the fake accounts or subscribers. There have been a lot of instances when people try to buy a mobile connection on a fake ID which later on doesn’t pose any problems to the actual user.
COAI Director General Rajan Mathews said – “The issue of fake subscribers will go away. We will try our best to cover the entire base within the stipulated time frame of one year but in case we cannot, we may ask DoT for an extension,”
Are there any drawbacks?
Not a lot, but if you need to subscribe to a second mobile connection, you will need to go through the entire process again. For example, if you currently own an Airtel connection and you want to subscribe to a second number from Airtel, you will need to go through the whole eKYC again. However, this will not be applicable while going from prepaid to postpaid or vice versa. Another drawback can be the difficulty for users who don’t have an Aadhaar card, to subscribe to a mobile connection.