Telecom regulator Trai on Tuesday ordered mobile carriers to disconnect services for unregistered telemarketers in a bid to silence the relentless barrage of unwanted calls.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said it would also blacklist the offenders, barring them from accessing telecom resources.
The move intensifies a long-running battle against spam calls. “This is a decisive action,” a Trai statement said.
At least 60 per cent of Indians are still receiving three or more spam calls on average daily and the majority of the calls are from companies selling real estate and financial services, revealed a survey by LocalCircles.
Under the new rules, carriers must migrate all unregistered telemarketers to a government-mandated platform by the end of the month.
Telecom companies will have to submit reports on their compliance on a fortnightly basis.
“We expect full co-operation from the industry,” said a senior Trai official, acknowledging the challenges that carriers may face in implementing the new rules.
The telecom regulator has mandated all access service providers to stop voice promotional calls whether pre-recorded or computer generated or otherwise from all unregistered senders or telemarketers (UTMs) using bulk connections or other telecom resources.