The union home ministry has given its nod to the fresh guidelines making telecom service providers accountable for any inaccurate information by subscribers while giving pre-paid and post-paid connections on Friday.

According to the revised guidelines issued on filling a Consumer Application Form (CAF), the DoT has made it mandatory for the licensee to sign the form prior to activation of the SIM card thereby certifying that the information provided on the form is correct.

"The date of sale of SIM and activation of SIM is required to be established from the entries in the CAF. For this purpose, entry of date is to be made with the signature of subscriber at the time of filing of CAF," it said. Sources said the home ministry gave its approval recently.

The guidelines said the Form should also contain the signature of the person at Point of Sale (PoS) during the time of verifying the subscriber and documents and signature of licensee at the time of verification before activation.

The revised guidelines, which have come into effect, were a follow up to the directions issued by Supreme Court after which a joint expert committee was constituted in the DoT.

Security agencies had been expressing serious concern over the failure of telecom operators in providing the details of mobile connections especially in pre-paid SIM cards, official sources said.

They said the telecom operators expressed helplessness in the event of any problems and often passed on the buck to the outlet which had sold the SIM card.

However, under the new form, the employee of the service provider will have to give his/her particulars before the SIM card is activated.