LAHORE, April 2: A stern action will be taken against those vendors who sell subscriber identity modules (SIMs) without getting the copy of computerised national identity card of the buyer.

“Franchised vendors issued a good number of SIMs without any identity card. In case of misuse, the holder of such a SIM is hard to be traced,” said Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) chairman Shahzada Alam Malik on Monday.

Several thousands stolen or snatched cellular phone sets were disabled after the implementation of the International Mobile Equipment Identity System (IMEI), he told reporters after inaugurating the 26th meeting of the Asia Pacific GSM Association.

“We can only jam the functioning of the sets but we can’t catch culprits,” the PTA chairman said when informed that the launch of the IMEI had not helped reduce incidences of cellular phones snatching or stealing and that the sets could be made functional again.

Pakistan, Mr Malik said, had become the first country in south Asia to have implemented the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) that would intensify competition among cellular operators and ultimately benefit the consumers.

After the launch of the MNP, the growth in the telecom industry had become promising, he said.

A sum of Rs5 billion to Rs6 billion had been invested by operators to apt to the multi-vendor system or the MNP that had been launched after a thorough testing, he said. The consumers benefiting from the facility would be between 1.5 to 2 per cent of the total cellular phone users, said Mr Malik, adding that the worldwide ratio of consumers changing operator was 3 per cent.

The telecom industry in Pakistan had attracted $9 billion foreign investment in the last three years and another $4 billion were expected in the next three to four years, he added.

The cellular mobile subscribers have crossed 50 million with 1.5 million new subscribers joining each month.

Warid Telecom Chief Executive Officer Hamid Farooq said owing to the untiring efforts of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology, the PTA and other cellular operators, there were over 50 million global system for mobile telecommunication’s (GSM) subscribers in Pakistan with a growth rate of 170 per cent in 2006. In recognition of the regulator’s role in the spectacular telecom sector growth, the GSM Association has awarded Pakistan the GSMA Government Award in 2006.

GSMAP chairman Mehboob Chaudhry said the International Telecom Union would set up a centre of excellence in Pakistan for south Asia where training facilities for people from all over the region would be available.