Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has directed the Ministry of Information Technology and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to sit with Cellular operators and work out a roadmap for verification of all unverified SIMS in the country.

The Prime Minister issued this direction in a meeting with private cellular operators who met him at the PM’s House this afternoon.

During the meeting the cellular operators informed the Prime Minister that the verification of SIMS was taking longer time than they had earlier expected and it would not be possible for them to verify the SIMS within the deadline.

It merits mentioning here that cellular companies had given December 31, 2012 deadline to its customers to get their connections registered or else the connections of unverified SIMs were to be blocked.

The Cellular Operators informed the Prime Minister that presently SIMs were only being issued from their Business Offices. Earlier 80,000 outlets were selling SIMs in the Country.

After listening to the operators and representatives of the Ministry of Information Technology, the Prime Minister directed the Ministry of IT to resolve the issue by March 7, 2013.

The meeting was attended by Chief Executive Officers of Cellular Companies as well as senior officials of Ministry of Information Technology.