"Information Minister Hasan Mahmud on Monday said process to register online news portals will start from the next week. "The process will continue for some days because it is not easy task to investigate about 3,500 news portals,” he said while talking to reporters at the secretariat.

A total of 3,517 applications were submitted after applications were sought for registration of online news portals and those were sent to the Home Ministry, the Minister added.

Several meetings were held with the Home, Telecom and ICT Ministries and later the Home Ministry was requested to investigate as soon as possible as the registration process could be started soon, he said.

“The Home Ministry informed us that they have completed investigation over several hundred news portals,” said Hasan Mahmud adding that it will take more time to end the process.

Steps will be taken against unauthorised online news portals after the end of registration process, he said.

If anyone wants to open an online news portal in future, he has to follow some procedure, said the Minister.