Getting the approval after months of debates on the viability of launching the prepaid services in the Jammu and Kashmir region, a source confirmed that the union home ministry has now put a ban on the bulk SMS facility to the subscribers operating in the area.

As the rule will come into effect, the mobile subscribers will only be able to send one SMS to only a single user at a point of time rather than the earlier facility of sending one message to multiple recipients. In fact, the ban comes taking the reason of 'security reasons' and the communication has already been passed to all of the telecom operators operating in the state.

However, this is not the first time that the state has faced turbulence in terms of the operations of the telecom operators. Though the ministry 'in the interest of security' has still not been clarified in an explained manner but after the last ban on prepaid mobile services in Jammu and Kashmir was imposed in November last year but was lifted in January 2010.

Even the use of SMS was banned in 2008 during the Amarnath trip in the region. J&K has nearly 3.5 million mobile subscribers.