NEW DELHI: Manohar Lal, a 27-year-old auto rickshaw driver in Delhi, owns two mobile phones, which he flashes with pride, often as a sort of status symbol. One is a CDMA connection that he uses to talk to his wife in Bihar, as the operator offers free night calling.

The GSM number, he advertises on the yellow hood of his rickshaw, is for customers wanting a pick up and drop service, anywhere in East Delhi.

Most of Manohar's peer drivers in his locality now own two mobile SIM cards, both prepaid connections, the second one being available for just Rs 10.

Working in a plush Gurgaon office, Shalini Vaid (name changed on request), a director with an MNC based in Gurgaon, also uses two SIM cards–one for her official Blackberry, the other, a GSM, for family and friends.

Vaid and Lal are a growing tribe of urban multiple connections mobile users (MCMUs), with a need to manage their telecom bills or wishing to keep their professional and personal lives apart.

One out of every three (57 million) urban mobile users in India now own two or more mobile connections, says India Mobile 2009, a survey by online market research company JuxtConsult, available exclusively to ET.

It's the first time an estimation on the size of this segment has been attempted, as none of the industry associations––Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI)––or sector regulator Telcom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) have any estimation of the number of multiple connections per user.

Understanding the size, composition and motivations of this huge segment of mobile users is critical. It is needed by mobile operators in designing their marketing plans. It is also needed by handset makers and department of telecom (DoT), which is in a fix as to estimating the true teledensity of India.

JuxtConsult's estimation of mobile connections in the country (till July) at 343-million is lower than TRAI's estimates of 441.6-million (August).

JuxtConsult attributes the difference between its estimate and TRAI numbers to many inactive connections. Says Sanjay Tiwari of JuxtConsult: "The discrepancy is also because about 15% of reported additions by mobile operators and their associations are inflated."

There are credible reasons behind operators inflating subscriber numbers. Market cap, valuation and spectrum allocation based on number of subscribers are key reasons along with the pressure to cut tariffs. It also helps attract subscribers to one's own network. A new user is likely to join a large operator as network calls come cheap.

A top DoT official told ET, on condition of anonymity, that the government suspected that all operators were inflating their customer figures by about 15-20%. DoT is in planning to monitor the user base of all telecom operators to ensure that operators do not inflate subscriber numbers to grab additional spectrum.