No Aadhaar card? You might not get SIM card too

New Delhi: After making Aadhaar number mandatory for filing of Income Tax returns, the government is soon going to make it compulsory for obtaining SIM cards too, media reports say.

A report in the Aaj Tak said that the Department of Telecom has sent a notice to telecom companies asking them to ensure that the SIM card of the mobile subscribesrs is linked to his/her Aadhaar card.

The DoT has asked the telecom operators to complete the process within a year, the media report said.

What happens to the existing customers?

All the existing customers will have to be re-verified by the telecom companies. Both pre-paid and post-paid users will have to fill in the re-verification under Aadhar card E-KYC process.

How will the verification be done?

The customers will be verified through SMSes. Telecom companies will send verification codes to its customers.

Aadhaar may become the only card required to identify a person, replacing Voter ID and PAN, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently said in the Lok Sabha.

The unique identification number Aadhaar may become the single identify card in future, he added.