TRAI moves in to control telemarketing calls

Death knell for unsolicited telemarketing calls.

29 April, 2007

At last, those who have been feeling harassed and helpless by unsolicited telemarketing calls from the likes of banks and personal loan and car loan companies can heave a much-needed sigh of relief.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), India’s telecom regulator, has issued regulations to ensure that only those who wish to be called get those telemarketing calls.

The TRAI decision follows a desire expressed by the Supreme Court of India, on hearing a case on this issue, that the government should come out with appropriate rules and regulations on which such complaints could be heard and redressed.

How does TRAI’s move against the telemarketing menace work?

Simply by placing a request with the telecom service provider concerned, a subscriber can put an end to those calls, like, for example, ‘Do you need a credit card?’

Once a subscriber makes a request to the operator, the operator will register his number in the ‘Do Not Call’ list, which will be maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

It has been made mandatory for the telemarketing agents to register themselves with the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) as Other Service Providers (OSPs). The OSPs would be able to call only those who want to be called.

In its regulation, the TRAI has mandated the telecom service providers to set up a mechanism to receive request from the subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited calls. The service providers would have to maintain a ‘Private Do Not Call List’ which would include telephone numbers and other details of all such subscribers.

The telephone numbers and the area code from this Private Do Not Call List will be updated online by the operators to a National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC) and thus the NDNC will have the telephone numbers of all the subscribers from all over India who have opted not to receive any unsolicited calls.

Telemarketers who have been categorised as Other Service Providers will have to register in the NDNC Registry. They would submit online the calling list to the NDNC registry, where the list will be scrubbed by excluding the numbers listed in the registry. The scrubbed list will be transferred online back to the telemarketer for making calls.

What happens if you still get unsolicited calls? Then the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will issue a warning – for the first time. If the caller does not relent, a tariff will be imposed on the telemarketer concerned, ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 per call. The next violation will lead to discontinuation of service, according to Nripendra Misra, chairman of TRAI.

The question of whether the TRAI can revoke the licence of a telemarketing company has not been looked into right now.

The banking sector is going to be worst-hit by the new regulations since about 80% of such calls originate from telebanking companies. According to the TRAI, there are over 30,000 telemarketing companies, of which more than three-fourths are not registered with the DoT.

As a majority of the telemarketers are being employed by the banking sector, the TRAI has also approached the Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks Association to ensure that no telemarketers are engaged by the banking sector without valid registration certificate issued from the DoT.

To identify the telemarketers, the TRAI has requested both the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks Association to prepare a list of telemarketers presently engaged by different banks, along with the telephone numbers being used by them for making telemarketing calls and submit the same to the regulator within a month.

The new regulation will be passed after the TRAI gets approval from the DoT, but the regulator sees no hurdles in the way of passing it.