TRAI plans to approach Commerce and Industry Ministry to impose ban on imports of mobile phones with fake IMEI

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is mulling to approach the Commerce and Industry Ministry to impose ban on the imports of mobile phones with unauthentic unique IMEI identification number, which will help the authorities to track users.

GSM Association and Telecommunications Industry Association are international bodies which offer unique numbers to mobile handset firms. This move is aimed at controlling proliferation of mobile handsets with duplicate or cloned IMEI numbers which may hamper national security.

IMEI or Mobile Equipment Identifiers (MEID) are 15-digit code assigned to a handset. Centre has banned services on mobile handsets with fake and invalid IMEI numbers after November 30, 2009.

In June 2009, Centre banned import of mobile phones that do not have IMEI number.