TRAI tightens rules on unsolicited calls

New Delhi, Mar 17: Telecom watchdog TRAI today said the telecom service providers will have to pay upto five thousand rupees for first unsolicited commercial call to the customers registered under 'national do not call' and will have to bear upto Rs 20,000 in case of second or subsequent such non-complaince.

Apart from this, the receiver will be paid five hundred rupees for the first unsolicited call and rupees one thousand for every subsequent such call. The notification also prescribes that the complaint regarding Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) shall be made by the subscriber to the Service Provider within fifteen days of the receipt of such call.

The Authority had set up the National Do Not Call (NDNC) Registry in October 2007 to reduce the inconvenience to the telecom subscribers caused from the unsolicited tele-marketing calls.

Till date, more than 8.3 million phone users have registered for in NDNC Registry.

About 13,600 telemarketers have got themselves registered with the Department of Telecommunication.

It is being accessed daily by about 600 tele-marketers for scrubbing their calling list.

Out of about 1522 million numbers uploaded by the telemarketers for scrubbing, 1411 million numbers were cleared by NDNC for calling.

The Authority said, ''financial disincentive as an additional effective deterrent to non- compliance of the Telecom UCC Regulations, 2007 (4 of 2007) has become a necessity.'' Therefore, it has notified the ''Telecom UCC (Amendment) Regulations, 2008.'' This regulation shall come into force from the date of its publication in the gazette notification, the watchdog said.

It is being issued after initiating a consultation on the amendment on January 16, 2008 and after taking into consideration the responses received from stakeholders in writing and the meeting held with the service providers including their associations.

UNI