Crackdown on pesky calls pays off

New Delhi: Telecom regulator Trai on Monday claimed that the stringent steps taken by the regulator to curb pesky calls and SMSes is showing results. The regulator said that on a weekly basis, the number of complaints against pesky messages and calls “has significantly reduced.”

“It has reduced from 12,848 to the week ending 22 August 2013 to 4,046 for the week ending November 17, 2013,” said Trai.

It noted that the telecom service providers have started taking various measures to comply with the regulations including putting spam based filtering mechanism, stringent terms and conditions in their forms for providing telecom services and taking action against the complaints.

In August, Trai had ordered imposition of financial disincentive not exceeding Rs 5,000 per complaint on the service provider.

Trai had said that if on verification of a complaint it is found that the Unsolicited Commercial Communications ( UCC) has been sent by a subscriber who is not registered as a telemarketer, the telecom operator will be liable to pay financial disincentives of Rs 5,000 on each complaint.

It had also made the provision that phone connections of banks, insurance firms and realty players will be disconnected if rules of unwanted calls and messages are flouted by them, or on their behalf. The telecom operators will have to submit to Trai by the 15th of every month the list of all bulk connections provided during the preceding month.

In the past many years Trai had come out with many provisions and rules in an attempt to stop the menance of pesky calls and messages. Even senior ministers in the Union cabinet have not being spared from calls by the telemarketers.

In one famous incident, in 2010 when President Pranab Mukerjee was finance minister, he had got a call from a telemarketer offering a home loan, when he was having a crucial meeting with opposition leaders including BJP leader Sushma Swaraj.