Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi
New Delhi, Mar 19: In a bid to combat the growing menace of spam calls and unsolicited messages, telecom service providers have blacklisted 1,150 entities and disconnected over 18.8 lakh resources, the government announced on Wednesday.
These measures have already led to a significant drop in complaints about unregistered telemarketers (UTMs), which have decreased from 1,89,419 in August 2024 to 1,34,821 in January 2025, Minister of State for Communications and Rural Development, Dr. Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, informed the Lok Sabha in a written response.
To further address this issue, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) amended the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2018, on February 12. One key change allows consumers to file complaints about spam or unsolicited commercial communications (UCC) within seven days of receiving such messages, up from the previous three-day limit.
Additionally, the action window for access providers to respond to complaints about UCC from unregistered senders has been reduced from 30 days to just five days. The criteria for taking action against spammers has also been tightened, with the threshold for initiating action lowered from 10 complaints within seven days to five complaints within 10 days.
These amendments, which are set to come into force 30 days after being published in the official gazette, are aimed at ensuring quicker and more stringent responses to UCC.
In another move to tackle spam, TRAI recently directed the disconnection of telecom resources used by unregistered senders for spamming purposes and ordered their blacklisting.
Last month, the government issued a warning to telecom service providers, threatening fines of up to Rs 10 lakh for failing to implement the revised regulations effectively.
The new amendments to the TCCCPR, 2018 are designed to address the evolving tactics used for misuse of telecom resources and foster a more transparent and consumer-friendly commercial communication ecosystem.