The Ministry of Home Affairs has asked the Department of Telecommunication to direct service providers to store call records of customers for at least five years and make them available to law enforcement agencies whenever required.

Citing security concerns, the MHA has conveyed to the DoT that the existing system of keeping call records by the telecom companies for six months has not been able to satisfy the security agencies and hence storing of call details for a longer period was necessary.

However, the DoT has not taken a final decision on the issue as the telecom companies have objected to the move citing operational costs.

"We want telecom companies to preserve their call data records for five years so that the security agencies can use that whenever required," a Home Ministry official said.

The law enforcement agencies insist that if the telecom companies do not comply with the order, after the DoT decision, heavy penalty should be imposed on them as it is an issue of national security which cannot be compromised.

There have been instances in the past when the government has imposed fines to the tune of Rs 700 crore on various telecom operators for carrying out illegal and clandestine activities in their services, particularly for non-compliance of the subscriber verification process.