Tapering the stranglehold grip over telecom/ mobile service providers and telemarketing companies, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday said that it would impose a fine up to Rs. 20,000 on unwanted calls over mobile operator or telecom body for not following the directives of TRAI. A fine up to Rs. 1000 would also be levied as a tariff charges from the registered telemarketing companies.
Relieving the telecom/mobile users, TRAI has amended the Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) (Amendment) Regulations, 2008 in which it has scrapped the flat charges of Rs. 500 over telecom operators and telemarketers which was proving ineffective in the previous UCC regulation, 2007 that was imposed on June last year.
Under UCC (Amendment) Regulation, 2008, TRAI has said, “if any telecom/ mobile service provider does not comply with provisions of the Regulations it would be fined up to Rs. 5,000 for the first instance and for every subsequent instance with an upper limit of Rs. 20,000.”
TRAI has also stated to levy of Rs. 500 as a tariff charge over registered telemarketers for the first unsolicited call and Rs. 1000 for the second and more. For this, TRAI has also revised the 47th amendment in Tele-communication Tariff Order, 1999 along with UCC regulation, 2008.
“The objective is to increase the effectiveness of compliance of these regulations by providing financial disincentive to non-compliant telecom service providers and thereby reducing the nuisance and inconvenience to the subscribers from the unsolicited tele-marketing calls/messages,” stated TRAI in a release.
For preventing the menace of unsolicited calls, TRAI has set up a ‘National Do Not Call’ (NDNC) cell in which users can registered themselves with phone/mobile numbers. This NDNC cell was set up in October 2007 and till date, more than 83-lakh phone users have registered themselves in this cell.
While there are nearby 1522 millions phone/mobile users were listed in the Department of Telecom list and as much as 13,600 telemarketing companies were also in DoT list.
According to TRAI, “The regulation will come into effect from the date of its publication in the gazette notification.”
Earlier, DoT had received several complaints from the phone/mobile users against telemarketing companies for mentally torching, untimely disturbing and interfering in their privacy.
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