Post-paid mobile services in Kashmir are are resumed from Monday, 72 days after they were shut down following the Centre’s decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, officials in Srinagar said on Friday.
The Kashmir valley has nearly 66 lakh mobile subscribers out of which nearly 40 lakh subscribers have post-paid facilities. Around 40 lakh postpaid mobile phones have become operational from Monday noon.
Restrictions were imposed after the Centre on 5th of Aug 2019 and bifurcated it into Union territories of Jammu and Kashmi and Ladakh, which will come into being on October 31.
Information from the officials is that Decision has been taken for post-paid mobile services and are resumed first and the pre-paid services will resumed later. They have also stressed that a proper verification of customer be undertaken for post-paid mobile services.
The move comes barely two days after the Centre issued an advisory opening the valley for tourists.
Travel association bodies had approached the administration, saying that no tourist would like to come to the valley where no mobile phones working.
The mobile services in Jammu and Kashmir were shut down on August 5 after the Centre announced in New Delhi the scrapping of special status guaranteed to the state under Article 370 of the Constitution.
Partial fixed line telephony was resumed in the valley on August 17, and by September 4 all landlines, numbering nearly 50,000, were declared operational.
In Jammu, the communication system was restored within days of the blockade and even mobile Internet was started around mid-August. However, after its misuse, the Internet facility on cellular phones was snapped on August 18.