‘Expel prepaid connection in Kashmir’

Ban to take toll on cellular growth

BILAL HUSSAIN

SRINAGAR, Oct 15 [2009]: With the recent statement of home minister P Chidambaram on banning prepaid connection in Kashmir, sales volume of telecom operators in the valley is going to slow down experts here believe.
The decision by home minister is taken in view of alleged misuse by militants and prepaid mobile users have been asked not to convert it to post paid connection.
The BSNL, a public sector telecommunication company, currently has a customer base of over eight lakh subscribers, Bharti Airtel, has got the highest customer base of over 18 lakh in the state, Dishnet Wireless has eleven lakh subscribers in the state and the new entrant in the state, Vodafone Essar has a customer base of over a lakh.
Exact figure up till August 2009 for the BSNL was 878842, for Bharti Airtel it was 1885695, Dishnet Wireless 1110163 and for Vodafone Essar 164717. Total number for all cellular connections in J&K till August this fiscal was 4039417. And same figure for the month of July 2009 was 3892626, which shows a growth of 3.77 per cent in a month.
According to a communication expert, Audil, the cellular growth rate of about 4 per cent is going to slow down to 2 per cent. “Most of the cellular connections in the valley are pre paid. By banning pre paid the growth rate of mobile connections would go down considerably,” he added.
The decision is not going to impact the over all profitability of the telecom operators functional here but the subscriber base is surely going to get affect by the move, an official of a telecom operator said.
To mention the telecom companies both public and private sector make enormous revenue of over Rs 960 crores annually in Jammu and Kashmir, according to a report.
The decision would have an impact on over all market size of the mobile service providers, is what authorized distributors believe. "Most of the customers come to us for pre paid connections but now we would not be unable to provide them one," a local dealer said who wished not to be named.
A prepaid SIM subscriber, Imran Wani said, "The decision is going to affect the poorer section of the society as most of them posses prepaid SIM cards," adding, "The prepaid scheme is meant mainly for below poverty line sections."
The statement, would hamper the growth of the mobile subscriber in remote rural areas, Imran said.
"Home minister sighting security reasons for banning the prepaid connections in the valley but in the current era militants use high-tech communication gadgets so it hardly would matter for them," a subscriber hailing from Sopore, Manzoor Ahangar said.
Another mobile subscriber said, "The existing prepaid connections should not be barred but further issuance of prepaid connections should be banned."
Earlier the government has asked people to switch over to post-paid connections. “I urge everyone to switch over to post-paid mobile connections. We may have to ban the use of pre-paid connection for a while in Kashmir if people do not switch over to post-paid,” home minister said.