Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has sought personal intervention of Union Minister of Communications & Information Technology KapilSibal to put in place a mechanism to issue local mobile SIM cards to the NRIs on the basis of their Non-Indian passport.
In a letter to Sibal, the Chief Minister said that NRIs were facing lot of difficulties in getting mobile SIM cards while visiting India as they don’t have any local identification. This was one of the major issues raised by Ministers, MPs, MLAs, Councilors and Mayors from all over the world, who had come to participate, in the Punjabi NRI Samellan held on 4th and 5th January, 2013 organized by the state government in Chandigarh and Jalandhar.
The Chief Minister impressed upon Sibal to get this genuine demand of NRIs thoroughly examined immediately and issue necessary guidelines to allow them local mobile SIM cards in order to mitigate their hardships.