The government on Saturday allowed roaming facility on mobile phones for Pakistan for a period of four months, apparently in the view of the ongoing Indo-Pak cricket series.
"We have allowed roaming on mobile phones for 4 months only on experimental basis and the experience will be reviewed on June 15," Communications and IT Minister Arun Shourie told reporters in New Delhi.
He said that Sunil Mittal-owned Bharti and Hutch would be in a position to offer roaming services to their subscribers within a day or so.
The minister, however, said that such a facility would not be extended to Jammu and Kashmir and North Eastern regions.
When contacted, AirTel spokesperson said they have already inked a bilateral agreement with MobiLink, the only GSM-based mobile service provider in Pakistan and AirTel's customers would be able to avail both voice and SMS facility with immediate effect.
Asked if the roaming facility was allowed in view of the ongoing Indo-Pak cricket series, Shourie said: "This is part of the process Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee initiated for restoring normalcy between the two nations." He said that the roaming facility would be on a reciprocal basis.
Attaching paramount importance to the security concerns, the minister said the review would be on the ground of the general situation and the feedback from the security agencies.
He thanked the prime minister, the security agencies, the home ministry and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha who cleared the proposal from his side, on Friday evening.
He said that another private service provider Hutch was also working on it and was expected to make the roaming operational on Sunday.
While state-owned BSNL, riding on the network of Spice, was in talks with MobiLink and is likely to provide service in next 2-3 days.