Centre asks all telcos to activate intra-circle roaming in J&K till Sept 2

The Centre has asked all the telecom service providers to immediately activate the intra-circle roaming (ICR) facility in Jammu and Kashmir till September 2, an official communication said.

The directive has been passed to the regulatory heads of Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Reliance-Jio and Vodafone-ldea amid a collapse of telecom services in large parts of J&K, leading to a large number of people being cut off as relentless rain for the fourth day caused flood-like situation in the Jammu division.

"In view of the prevailing situations due to heavy rainfall and multiple landslides in Jammu and Kashmir, and in accordance with Clause 29.6 of the unified licence and as per the provisions of SOP 2020 for responding to disasters, all telecom service providers are hereby instructed to activate the intra-circle roaming facility for the J&K Union Territory with immediate effect till 23:59 hours of September 2, or till further instructions, whichever is earlier," the disaster management unit of the Department of Telecommunications said in its order.

It said the ICR facility will continue to be extended to all in-roamers in Jammu and Kashmir and this may be treated on top priority.

Network outages in all the service providers were reported from J&K after widespread damage to optical fibres at various sites due to incessant rain.

The communication blackout impeded emergency response measures and caused panic among the residents.

The telecom operators said technical teams have been deployed to restore services as soon as possible.