TRAI brings regulation to curb unsolicited calls

New Delhi, June 5: In a bid to curb unwanted telemarketing calls, telecom watchdog TRAI today issued the 'Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulations 2007'.

Under the Regulation, TRAI has facilitated setting up of a national database called National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC), containing list of telephone numbers of all such subscribers who do not want to receive the unsolicited commercial calls (UCC).

Department of Telecom (DoT) has contracted National Informatics Centre (NIC) to design and maintain the NDNC. The telecom service providers will set up the call centres with 'toll free telephone lines' to receive request from their subscribers who want to register in the NDNC.

The service providers will periodically update the NDNC online and thus the NDNC will have the telephone numbers of all the subscribers from all over India who have opted not to receive any UCC.

In the regulation, maximum of 45 days have been given from the date of registration of request by a subscriber to inclusion of his telephone number in the NDNC.

As per the regulations, telemarketers will have to register in the NDNC registry. The telemarketers would make online request by submitting the calling list to the NDNC registry and the registry will return the list of 'Do Not Call' numbers to the requested telemarketer.

The DoT has formulated separate guidelines for 'Telemarketers'.

All the agencies making voice calls or sending SMSs for marketing of products, including those content providers who offer various services through SMS and voice using short codes fall in the category of telemarketers and such telemarketers are required to register with DoT.

In its regulation, the authority has mandated the telemarketers to register themselves with the DoT, within three months of issue of the guidelines for telemarketers by the department. Otherwise, their telecom services may face disconnection.

With a view of avoiding any disruption in the telemarketing activity, the scheme also envisages provisional registration of the telemarketers at the level of telecom service providers.

As majority of the telemarketers are being employed by the Banking sector, the authority has also approached the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks' Association (IBA) to ensure that no telemarketers are engaged by the Banking Sector without valid registration certificate issued from DoT and also requested them to ensure that all the telemarketers presently engaged by the banks should register themselves with DoT as 'Telemarketer' within three months.

The RBI has extended full support for this scheme.

UNI