Staff Reporter :Time for biometric SIM registration, which was to end last evening, has been extended till May 31.State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim made this announcement at a press briefing Yesterday (Saturday) afternoon in the conference hall of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) in the city.The unregistered SIMs will be deactivated randomly for three hours on May 1. The SIMs/RUIMs of those users who will not be able to complete the registration through the biometric system will be deactivated permanently after the extended deadline, she said.She praised peoples’ cooperation who responded to the government decisionand got their SIMs and RUIMs registered standing on long queues ignoring the heat wave. Of the 13.09 crore active SIMs, over 8.38 crore have been registered so far and the number may reach 9 crore by the evening on Saturday, the minister assumed.BTRC Chairman Dr Shajahan Mahmood, Additional secretary of Telecom Ministry Shawkat Mostafa among others were present at press conference.Earlier on the day Tarana Halim attended a program organised by the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) at Krishibid Institute in the capital (Saturday). During the program, the telecom operators informed the State Minister that physically challenged people are facing problem to have their SIMs registered as the authorised registration centres are crowded with the registration process at the last moment.Replying their questions Tarana Halim said the SIMs used by people with special needs which are yet to have biometric registration will not be deactivated on May 1. The authorised registration centres will also take special care for these subscribers every Saturday next month starting from May 7, she further instructed.The process of registering SIMs/RIUMs under the biometric system began on December 16 last and the deadline was April 30. Telecom operators had to deal with last-minute rush of SIM card holders yesterday (Saturday) with the deadline for biometric SIM registration by the evening.Mobile operators alleged that they were facing serious problems in getting connected to the National Identity Database (NID) since Thursday evening, which slowed down the re-registration process. Things got worse on Saturday as it took 10-12 minutes to get connected to the NID for matching fingerprints of SIM card holders, said a number of operators.On condition of anonymity, a customer care manager of state-run mobile operator Teletalk in Farmgate area said they were also facing the same problem.This correspondent visited several customer care centres of mobile operators in the capital where the operators said the registration process was a lot slower than usual.”We are facing a rush of customers,” said Ekram Kabir, Vice President for Communications and corporate responsibility at Robi. A large number of them turned back, finding the registration process slow, he said.Ekram said they hoped to register at least five lakh SIMs from yesterday morning to mid-day but could register 3.5 lakh SIMs within the time.Brig Gen Sultanuzzaman Md Saleh Uddin, Director General of Election Commission’s NID wing, said they received complaints from mobile operators that the NID server was down, but they found no problem in the server. “One of our teams is working with the operators, and if any problem arises, it will solve that,” he said.
