TRAI allows more time on unsolicited calls penalty

New Delhi: Most telecom operators, including the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), are believed to be opposed to the regulator’s proposal to impose a penalty of up to Rs20,000 on service providers for every instance of non-compliance with telemarketing norms.

Telco sources said the new regulation would be very tough on operators and that it would be opposed.

Meanwhile, conceding the telcos’ request, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday extended the deadline for the operators to give their views on the proposed amendment to the Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulations. Inputs can now be submitted by January 31 instead of January 23.

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Currently, no penalty is imposed on telecom service providers even when unsolicited telemarketing calls are made to phone subscribers registered with the National Do Not Call (NDNC) Registry.

To bring in greater accountability and make the telemarketing rules more effective, TRAI proposed earlier this month that service providers should shell out Rs 5,000-20,000 as penalty every time an unsolicited call was made.

The tariff levy for violating telemarketers is also set to increase. Any non-compliant telemarketer would be levied a tariff of Rs 500 by the service provider for making the first unsolicited call, and Rs 1,000 for any subsequent calls. At present, there’s only one slab of tariff levy for non-compliant telemarketers - Rs 500 per call.

Only 7.5 million out of over 260 million phone subscribers in the country have registered for Do-Not-Call since October 2007, when the NDNC Registry was set up. Out of an estimated over-30,000 telemarketers in the country, only 12,183 have got themselves registered so far.

As per the regulation, any phone subscriber who registers with the NDNC Registry must stop getting unsolicited calls from registered telemarketers within 45 days.

According to the proposed regulation, if any telecom service provider does not comply with the provisions of the Regulations, “it shall be liable to pay an amount not exceeding Rs 5,000 for the first non-compliance and in case of second or any subsequent non-compliance, an amount not exceeding Rs 20,000 for each non-compliance.”