The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) which is the watchdog for all telecom happenings in the country has proposed a measure under the “Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference (Tenth Amendment) Regulations, 2012” which will help in curbing unwanted SMS from telemarketers.
It has been noted that telemarketers are using general SIM cards to send SMS to user who are also registered under the NDNC (National Do No Call Registry) and now they might have to pay a penalty of Rs. 500 on first complaint from a user against them.
And this penalty of Rs. 500 will apply on every SMS that the marketer sends and after the limit of 10 SMS is crossed, TRAI will disconnect the telecom resources of the marketer.
In case of unwanted calls, the first complaint will invite a warning which will followed by a fine of Rs. 500 and on the third such instance, it’ll result in disconnection of service.
It has also been proposed that consumers will be able to lodge complaints of such unsolicited communications by forwarding the SMS to 1909 and also will be possible by email communication.
Any consumer who wishes to register a complaint against unsolicited SMS or call has to send SMS in the following format:
COMP TEL NO XXXXXXXXXX; dd/mm/yy; Time in hh:mm; short description of Unsolicited Commercial Communication” to 1909, where XXXXXXXXXX – is the telephone number or header of the SMS, from which the UCC has originated.
TRAI has asked the stakeholders to send their comments on the regulations and the consultation paper by August 18, 2012.