Follow these steps to avoid 'deactivation' of your Vodafone, Airtel, Idea mobile numbers

As the government has already announced to link 12-digit Aadhaar issued by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) with mobile SIM cards otherwise, all unlinked numbers will get deactivated after February 2018, said sources.

Big telcos including Vodafone, Idea and Airtel have been sending messages to their customers for linking their Aadhaar with phone numbers.

According to the reports of IANS, it is now mandatory to link all the mobile numbers with Aadhaar cards to avoid deactivation of mobile number.

This decision was taken in February 2017 in the Lokniti Foundation case.

Though the linking is free but the SIM users will have to visit the store as this complete process is offline.

Here's how you can link the two:

Step 1 Go to your telecom operator shop with Aadhaar Card

Step 2 Ask them to link Aadhaar number with mobile number by filling up a re-verification form.

Step 3 The operator will send a verification code on the number which you're going to verify.

Step 4 Provide the verification code to the operator

Step 5 Give you bio-metric expressions

Step 6 You'll receive a confirmation message, simply type Y & send it to them

Step 7: It will take 24 hours for the verification process to complete.