NEW DELHI: Over 850 mobile subscribers across the country are likely to get relief from pesky commercial calls and messages as the telecom regulator Monday said new laws governing such communications would be implemented from Sep 27 and violators penalised heavily.
“Relevant clauses of regulations have been amended and the regulations are being implemented from Sep 27, 2011,” said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in a statement.
To avail the services, the customers will have to get themselves registered with the National Customer Preference Registry, earlier known as “Do Not Call” Registry. The regulations include fines ranging from Rs.25,000 to Rs.250,000 for the defaulting companies.
According to reports, while the number of pesky calls has come down lately, the messages still remained a menace. On an average, as many as 47,454 complaints per month are being registered in this regard.
Although over 130 million mobile subscribers had registered with the national do not call registry till Aug 25, consumers are still pestered with unwanted commercial calls and messages.
The telecom watchdog had announced a set of new measures last year to curb such unsolicited commercial communications which were to be implemented from Jan 1, but it kept repeatedly postponing the implementation sate.
The department of telecom (DoT) has provided ‘140’ number series to be allocated to telemarketers for a fixed line network.
Access providers have to make relevant provisions in their network before allocation of resources to telemarketers using ‘140’ numbering series from fixed line network.
Unlike the previous regulation that asked customers to register their numbers in “Do Not Call” list, the new regulations allows customers to choose from different categories like “Fully blocked” or “Partially blocked”.
TRAI has disconnected over 72,000 telephone connections of registered telemarketers and over 118,000 of unregistered telemarketing companies for breaching guidelines related to commercial calls and messages up to May 2011. (IANS)
