“Telecom Reforms aim to provide world-class internet and tele-connectivity for the marginalised section.” This was said recently by Ashwini Vaisnaw, Minister of Communication.

Now, in a major step towards achieving this objective, the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Government of India, today issued a series of orders simplifying the KYC processes and thereby initiating the telecom reforms announced by the Cabinet on 15.09.2021. 

Presently, a subscriber has to undergo the KYC process which entails a visit to the Point of Sale along with the original documents of identity and address as proof for obtaining a new mobile connection or conversion of mobile connection from Prepaid to Postpaid or vice-versa.

Online service delivery has become an acceptable norm in the recent past and most of the customer services are being offered through the internet with OTP authentication. Contactless services in the COVID era need to be promoted for subscriber convenience and also for ease of doing business.

Customer consent has been made compulsory in case the Aadhaar is being used and demographic details are being obtained electronically from UIDAI.

Accordingly, the following orders for immediate implementation have been issued by DoT to implement contactless, customer-centric and secured KYC processes: -

Aadhaar based e-KYC

Aadhaar based e-KYC process has been re-introduced for issuing of new mobile connections. Telecom Service Providers will be charged Rs. 1/- per customer authentication by the UIDAI. This is a complete paperless and digital process wherein the demographic details along with pictures of the customer is received online by the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) from the UIDAI.

Self-KYC
In this process, the issuing of mobile connections to the customers is done through an App/Portal-based online process wherein a customer can apply for mobile connection sitting at home/office and gets the SIM delivered at his doorstep using documents electronically verified by UIDAI or DigiLocker.

OTP based conversion of mobile connection from Prepaid to Postpaid and vice-versa
The implementation of OTP based conversion process enables a subscriber to convert his mobile connection from Prepaid to Postpaid and vice-versa sitting at home/office via OTP based