Telecom operators in Pakistan have set up their mobile towers within 10 km distance from the international border in Rajasthan sector, Indian Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

"Inputs indicate that the mobile towers have been set up by U-Fone, Tenlor and Yuang mobile service providers inside Pakistan territory approximately 10 km distance from the international border in Rajasthan sector," Minister of State for Communications and IT Milind Deora informed the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) in a written reply.

Mobile service providers are not allowed to provide services within the 'No Service Zone' of 500 meters width along the international border. Further, it is not permitted to provide mobile base trans-receiver stations (BTS) in buffer zone of 10 km width along the LOC, LAC and International boarder in J&K area, Deora said.

The mobile signals of the Pakistan service providers are available inside Indian territory in Barmer. Similarly, in some of the border towns of Jammu and Kashmir, the Pakistan Mobile service providers' signals are present, Deora said.

On Bangladesh frontier, interference inside the international border in West Bengal from a Bangladesh Service Provider named Axiata is observed in the areas of Gosainhat (District Coochvihar) and Gede Railway station (District Nadia) in West Bengal.

Illicit use of SIM cards of service providers of foreign countries (Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan) by people or smugglers inside Indian territory in border areas have been reported, he added. Jammers is one of the options to block other country mobile signals. However, the range in which jammers can effectively block mobile signals is about 3-4 km.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has taken up it as an agenda item to control cross border penetration of mobile radio signals and applicable technical solution to sort out and to minimise the interference, Deora said. The security agencies in the border areas and DoT are working in coordination to stop such misuse.