Karnataka Police Department to port from BSNL to Reliance Jio services

BENGALURU: The State Police Department is now planning to port from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to Reliance Jio services with the aim of getting better connectivity.

The police department has taken this important decision as the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is not providing proper network connectivity and officials across the state are finding it difficult to keep themselves in the loop. The government has granted permission to port about 38,347 SIM cards.

A circular released by Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) (communication, logistics and modernisation in Bengaluru) Soumendu Mukherjee, stated that the government has approved the change of service provider for existing CUG/Beat SIM cards from BSNL to Reliance Jio and a work order for the same has been issued to Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited in this regard.

The existing mobile number of officers and personnel will be retained and will only be ported to Jio network.

The following steps shall be ensured for successful completion of porting process.

Payment of any outstanding dues of Group/Individual account of existing BSNL numbers is a prerequisite for the porting process.

New Jio SIM cards will be provided to the units in advance.

Porting requests need to be raised from each individual SIM card and once initiated, the process should be completed within a 4-day window. Since there are 38,347 active connections, porting process will be done in a phased manner to cover all units.

Porting requests in units should also be made in a phased manner and in coordination with the office of the SP, wireless.

Further dues of BSNL (rent from previous bill date to the date of porting) shall also be paid in the subsequent month on receipt of the bill for the same. Non-payment of this bill will attract rejection of porting request at the later stage.

In situations where only part of mobile connections of a Unit is ported to Jio and bills are raised by both BSNL and Jio for their respective active connections, payment of both bills shall be made.

Post Porting: Reliance Jio bills will be raised in a single group account for an individual unit to include all CUG/Beat SIMs.

One nodal officer per unit should be nominated for coordination of porting process, for monitoring of current/future bills and other related matters.

Private companies are already providing 5G service, but BSNL is not providing 4G service in many parts of the state. This is causing problem during emergency services. Hence, Reliance Jio was selected after commercial evaluation as per the Karnataka Transparency Act 1999 in public procurement, officials said.

No WhatsApp Display Pictures

In another development, police officers and personnel in the Southeast division have been directed not to put up their photos as Display Pictures on WhatsApp and instead have to put up the ‘Lokaspandana’ QR code from Wednesday.

According to instruction issued by DCP C K Baba, the officers should not reject any calls from the public. In case calls are not received, people can scan the QR code and send a message which will go directly to the DCP. Complaints against officers can also be sent using the Lokaspandana QR code.

The move comes in the wake of several complaints against officers and putting up ‘Singham’ style pictures of them as their display pictures.