People with 85.52 lakh SIMs left Dhaka in 4 days

People with a total of 85.52 lakh mobile connections left Dhaka in four days until April 21, as holidaymakers travelled to their homes to celebrate Eid.

People with some 32 lakh SIMs left Dhaka on April 21, the day before Eid.

Telecom Minister Mustafa Jabbar disclosed the information via a post on his Facebook page today.

However, people with 23.91 lakh SIMs entered Dhaka in the four days --from April 18 to April 21.

"These figures are collected from the mobile operators," Jabbar told The Daily Star recently.

However, it couldn't be determined exactly how many people left or entered Dhaka with the figures, as a person can have multiple SIMs, the minister said.

"A person can use as many as 15 mobile connections. But on an average, each people have 1.5 SIMs."

Out of the 18 crore SIMs in circulation, 12 crore are unique mobile users, he said.

On the other hand, there are millions of children, elderly and poor people who have no handsets, according to industry people.