'National Do Not Call' registry in place, says Govt

New Delhi, Aug 23 (UNI) In what has come as a great relief to mobile phone subscribers, a 'National Do Not Call'(NDNC) Registry has been put in place to register their requests for not being disturbed by unwanted telemarketing phone calls.

The facility is free of cost for subscribers, Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology Shakeel Ahmad informed the Rajya Sabha during the Question Hour.

The telemarketing companies would be charged Rs 500 per unwanted calls made by their representatives.

Any mobile subscriber can request his/her own service provider to get his number included in the NDNC registry, a facility which was free of cost for the subscribers.

He said the telemarketing companies had been asked to register themsleves with TRAI by August 31.

The Government had last month given an assurance to the Supreme Court that such a mechanism to save subscribers from unsolicited calls would be in place by September 5.

Acting on a public interest petition filed by social activist Harsh Pathak, the court had in 2005 issued notice to the Centre, the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd., Hutch, Reliance Telecom, IDEA Cellular, Bharti Telenet, Citibank, HSBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank seeking their response.

The petitioner sought a direction to the cellular companies to check, regulate and put to an end the invasion of privacy of their subscribers.

UNI