desi

OCI/NRI/FOreign national who are not resident of India (staying less than 180 days in a year at current address) are not allowed to have aadhaar card.

How are they suppose to link their SIM to aadhhar?

Friend spends 3 weeks in India and 10 weeks in US every quarter. Permanent Indian mobile phone number is becoming essential not just for convenience at airport but for other items such as Ola, online banking, debit cards (many companies need that for OTP) etc.

Any suggestions?

Separately, neither the Supreme Court order in Feb nor Ministry of Telecom memo in April seem to mention need for Biometric verification, but airtel/idea seem to insist on one. Any workaround for this? (especially for immobile patients who survive on mobile phones)

oliver2002

Get a good friend to vouch for your account. Thats how I got my jio account. The vodafone account I inherited from my mother in March 2016, no one asked for verification there.

Keyser

give it a little bit of time & there will be some clarity....this government has a habit of putting stuff in place without any instructions on how to implement them....

desi

The PDF file of memo from Min-of-Telco seems to be clear cut. Instructs companies to take steps that do not create troubles for the consumers (and interestingly does not mention need for thumb print0

Dont think Airtel is so obtuse to introduce themselves. Mukesh Ambani had actually described this thumb print process last year but it was mentioned as their (Jio) innovation to make verification faster (not mandatory).

Trying to find out which idiot introduced thumb screen requirement as mandatory rather than optional for efficiency.

Same thing happened when Kangress introduced Aadhaar. How invalid handicapp people go to "centers" and wait for hours was not thought through but after 3-4 years UDAI started coming to patient's home if it was arranged through ward officer (which meant blunt bribes to elected cong corporator)

However in this case, instead of telco companies going to patient's home, might be easier just to do the old fashioned validation (may take longer but can work)

Keyser

as usual the incompetence of both these parties continues to make life difficult for the general public....

oliver2002

The DoT has issued an order that addresses the specific need of OCI/Foreigners, NRI and 70+ Indians...

http://dot.gov.in/sites/default/file...pdf?download=1

Hope they implement this correctly so I can transfer my mothers number to me now...

desi

This will help with the mandatory aadhar linking mandate but still does not help with SIM getting deactivated if not used for 90 days thing.
(adding money to the account does not work. Leaving behind and requesting someone to use it at least once in 3 months does help. I have seen mixed reports about success of activating international roaming and using it for 1 min call every 89 days)

bluecrabs

I use a dual sim phone and use my Indian number to receive OTP SMS, I just send an SMS to my local number from my Indian number every three months to keep it active. Cheapest way to keep it active IMO

Bandicoot

It's certainly easier for some carriers than others. With Vodafone, for instance, international roaming can be activated easily by sending an SMS in a particular format to a special number. Thereafter it indeed works well to keep the SIM alive by sending a text or making a call every 3 months (speaking from personal experience). With some other carriers like BSNL, activating international roaming may require either a call or a visit to a customer service center.

Note that with the regulations issued some time back (2015?) even if you don't make a call or send a text every 3 months, the SIM should stay alive as long as you have a sufficient balance in the account to allow for a monthly charge (Rs 20?) to be deducted. The SIM is deactivated only when the balance falls below Rs 20. I have not tested this scenario, however. :-)

In either case, if you have a reliable way to add funds to your account, it should in theory be possible to keep the SIM alive indefinitely outside India.

SeeBuyFly

I have. It works exactly as advertised. On the other hand, on Airtel, sending a SIM while roaming abroad triggers monthly Rs 99 'roaming rental' fees until the SIM next connects to an Indian cell, so this is more expensive.