Telecommunications Regulatory Authority TRAI imposed a penalty of Rs. 34.99 crore to service providers for failing to curb annoying calls and texts on their network, Parliament was told on Friday.
Union Telecoms Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a written response to the Rajya Sabha that telecom operators reportedly cut 15,382 and 32,032 connections in calendar years 2021 and 2022, respectively, for violating the Telecom Commercial Communication Customers Preference Regulation (TCCCPR) of 2018.
“TRAI has imposed financial incentives of Rs. 34,99,98,000 on access service providers for failing to curb unwanted commercial communications from registered telemarketers on their networks,” Vaishnaw said.
Last month, TRAI directed Service providers must develop a unified digital platform within two months to obtain, maintain and withdraw customer consent for promotional calls and messages.
In the first phase, only subscribers can initiate the process to register their consent to receive promotional calls and SMS. Companies can later contact customers to obtain their consent to receive promotional messages, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a statement at the time.
Access providers, which include telecommunications providers trust jio, Bharti AirtelAnd Vodafone ideawere also instructed to use a common shortcode starting with 127 to send consent messages.
In Opinion poll In a survey conducted earlier this year, around 76 percent of respondents said they’d noticed an increase in annoying calls or texts based on their conversations with WhatsApp business accounts and their activity on Facebook or Instagram.
Already in November last year, TRAI called It worked on various technologies to detect annoying calls and messages, as well as a joint action plan with other regulators to curb financial fraud.
