ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has announced that the Device Identification, Registration and Blocking System (Dirbs) will be launched in Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir next month.

The state-owned Special Communications Organisation (SCO) and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) have settled all legal hitches for the enforcement of Dirbs to end the smuggling of smartphones in these areas.

The PTA has announced that after Sept 1, the non-registered devices will have to go through the registration process by paying taxes and complying with standards.

“We have rolled out the Dirbs in AJK and GB,” a PTA spokesperson told Dawn, adding that awareness through all media including direct SMS to the users has been forwarded regarding the status of their device.

“All available devices will be paired with their numbers and the device will be registered,” the spokesperson added. “All mobile devices must be registered with the PTA, failing which local SIMs will be deactivated and the unregistered devices will stop functioning .”

The PTA and FBR launched Dirbs in June 2018 and the FBR collected taxes on the unregistered mobile phone sets brought into the country by individuals or through illegal channels.

However, due to FBR’s jurisdiction issue, Dirbs could not be launched in the GB and the AJK, as a result, the usage of unregistered phones using SIMs issued by SCO became widespread in those areas.

Manzar Hussain, a mobile phone businessman in Gilgit, said that non-duty paid phones either coming from China or even from Pakistan itself had higher profit margins.

“Since SCO is primarily functioning in GB and AJK, the non-duty paid phones operate at SCO and due to tax saving a large number of users obtain such phones and get the SCO numbers too,” Mr Hussain said, adding that the SCO numbers operate in mainstream Pakistan too as the SCO has network sharing business deal with Ufone.

Under these conditions, the sale of unregistered phones in GB and AJK had become a booming business in recent years, whereas the Pakistan Mobile Phone Manu­facturers Association (PMPMA) had expressed its concerns to former minister for IT and telecom Syed Amin ul Haque.

To address this discrepancy, the IT Ministry reached out to the federal cabinet and got integration of SCO into the Dirbs system.

The mobile phone manufacturers have estimated that over one million smuggled mobile phones were currently in use in that area.

“Dirbs system introduced to safeguard local mobile device manufacturing and discourage import and smuggling of mobile sets,” said PMPMA vice-chairman Muzaffar Paracha. “With Dirbs in GB & AJK local industry will grab at least 20 per cent of that market by the year-end,” he added.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2023