A Parliamentary Standing Committee has said that about 500 illegal telecom network which are operating in various part of the country, are posing a threat to the country’s security. It also criticized the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for reproducing already known information in vague manner in its response.
“….they are security threat to the country, these illegal networks cause a great loss to the government because they need not pay the licence fee,” the report said.
In report tabled in the parliament the panel said that such networks were present in 16 states with maximum of 120 cases in Andhra Pradesh, followed by 100 in Tamil Nadu, 61 in Delhi, 54 in Maharashtra and 31 in Kerala.
“The (Standing) Committee is not concerned to note that the illegal telecom networks are mushrooming in the country. As per the cases reported so far 500 clandestine/illegal set-ups are operating in various parts of the country. The actual position in this regard may even be worse,” it said in a report tabled in Parliament here.
Criticizing DoT it said “The Department instead of collecting data and furnishing the same to the Committee has reproduced the already known information in vague manner according to which the raids are conducted along with the persons from Law Enforcement Agency and the cases are handed over to LEA simultaneously,”