Following is a Guest Post by Dinesh Bareja (blog), Information security and CSR consultant. Originally posted on IndiaKiAwaz
The Government has blindly issued orders to all telcos to confirm the identities of 600 million (60 cr) subscribers since they assume that 30% or so are fake. It is so typical of the government to start new scams and I would like to know which “expert” is involved here.
On the one hand we are so very militant about green and environment issues and BEE and MEF and the activists talk about conservation. Here the government has foolishly started a new ‘progrom’ and the telcos stupidly implement the orders. I was at a Vodafone store and it was swamped with people who were submitting a fresh set of documents. I filled in my form and handed it over and was told I should fill in two forms since I have two numbers ! Inspite of having a field for two numbers on the form, I had to submit another set – form + license copy + photograph – this got me thinking about the national waste thought up by some silly fool of a bureaucrat.
I spent some time to a high level calculation and am sharing this with the group hoping someone will carry it and shove it in the face of the idiot who started this exercise in the guise of national security. After you have seen these numbers think about [1] the environmental impact of people who will work on this, [2] the people who made a killing printing the forms and doing data processing…….
Finally – I am not going to fool myself with the thought that some telco will undertake the cost of processing 300 million forms free – only to meet compliance requirements !!!
Calculations….
1. Approx number of mobile phone subscribers in India = 600 million
1.1 Number considered for this calculation = 50%
2. requirement for verification by Vodafone etc:
– a form
– photocopy of license, passport etc
– color photograph on picture paper
= mininum 2 sheets of paper
x 300 million = 600 million sheets (60 cr sheets)
= 12,lac packets of paper that we see in our office
each packet is 2.2 kgs approx (70 gsm)
= 26,40,000 kg
= 2640 tons of paper used
= 5 280 000 pounds
= 63,936 trees
3. Computer time for reconciliation or for entry of each form estimated @ 15 mins per applicant
Total number of forms to be processed = 300 million
Total computer time = 75 million hours
= 8561 man years
Average assumed electricity consumption per computer ~ 680 watts
= electricity consumption / year = 5956 Kw
= total elec for processing the crap collected by the telcos = 50,996,164 kw
Carbon Footprint = 21,929 tons
= this will be offset by ~ 1000 trees for 40 years
Well-written and thought-provoking, I must say……..