While the U.S. fights the scourge of fraudulent telemarketing and unwanted robocalls that violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), consumers and regulatory bodies in India are doing the same. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently issued changes to its "Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations,” creating the Twelfth Amendment to the document. The new edition contains further measures to control and prevent unwanted telemarketing calls.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is the independent regulator of the telecommunications business in India. The goal of the amended document is to rein in commercial communication from subscribers engaging in telemarketing activities who block their identities to avoid registering as telemarketers with TRAI, a step that is required in India. By failing to register, these telemarketers are avoiding making payments of promotional SMS charges or the other kind of charges or deposits which are required to be paid by registered telemarketers.
Consumers in India are also seeing an increased number of unsolicited telephone calls that violate India’s telemarketing rules, and many are receiving calls despite being registered in NCPR, India’s formal do-not-call registry.
New measures in the amended version include a rule that if there is a valid unsolicited telemarketing complaint, the originating access provider will be liable to disconnect all the telecom resources allotted to such subscriber, after making necessary investigations. This provision will come into effect with immediate effect, according to the newspaper Jagran Josh.
The newspaper reports that the names and addresses of violators found skirting the TRAI rules will be entered into a blacklist for two years. Once the subscriber is entered into the blacklist, telecom access providers will disconnect that violator within 24 hours.