According to the first person, the department of consumer affairs (DoCA), the parent organization of Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), believes that telecom regulator Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has taken corrective measures to curb unwanted calls, and the CCPA has observed a change in the behaviour of telecom service providers.
“Telecom service providers are working closely with Trai to reduce unwanted calls by adopting measures such as colour coding to identify spam and marketing calls, along with changes in registered caller identification,” said the second person cited above. “Given these efforts, the CCPA is considering putting on hold the issuance of separate guidelines for handling pesky calls.”
To be sure, Bharti Airtel’s vice chairman and managing director Gopal Vittal said during the release of the company’s quarterly report in February that Airtel’s anti-spam tool “has brought significant relief, notifying nearly 252 million unique customers and effectively combating the SPAM menace”.
Also read | Mint Explainer: Trai’s latest crackdown on spam calls—inside the latest measures
Vittal added that the spam tool identifies more than one million unique spammers making more than 130 million calls daily. “Additionally, our solution detects over 7 million spam SMSes daily,” he said.
The CCPA’s move comes a year after a stakeholders’ meeting was held in March 2024, where punitive action was proposed against firms for violating privacy and breaching consumer rights. A committee comprising government officials from different ministries, regulators and voluntary consumer organisations was formed the same month, and three to four stakeholder meetings were conducted thereafter.
However, the CCPA will continue to address complaints registered on the national consumer helpline (NCH) regarding unwanted calls under its existing norms for unethical trade practices and consumer protection, the second person said.
Queries emailed to the consumer affairs ministry and Trai remained unanswered till press time.
Steps taken by Trai
After the consumer affairs ministry took the lead in making pesky calls a punishable offence, Trai implemented several measures to hold telecom operators accountable through punitive actions.
The telecom regulator introduced the 160 number series to help consumers identify telemarketing calls. It has also taken measures like blacklisting violators, disconnecting telecom resources, and requiring URL whitelisting to prevent fraud and phishing scams.
Read this | India’s burgeoning spam calls problem, in 7 charts
Trai also made it mandatory for telecom operators to monitor call and SMS patterns to detect spammers in real time. Under the amended Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, telecom operators face fines ranging from ₹2 lakh for the first violation to ₹10 lakh for repeated offences if they misreport unsolicited commercial communications (UCC).
Industry feedback
The consumer affairs department’s move is seen as part of policy deregulation to give concerned ministries greater oversight. However, experts view it as a setback for consumers, arguing that dedicated guidelines would have helped tackle unsolicited calls from agents or representatives across various service sectors, including financial services.
“A dedicated guideline for a specific sector ensures a more focused approach to addressing complaints about unwanted calls,” said Ashim Sanyal, chief executive of Consumer Voice, a consumer rights advocacy organization. “It also empowers consumers by providing clear regulations tailored to a particular category.”
Also read | The losing battle against phone spam
For perspective, the committee that was formed in March 2024 comprised officials from the department of telecommunications, the department of financial services, the ministry of housing and urban affairs, the Reserve Bank of India, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, representatives from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), telemarketing companies, and voluntary consumer organizations.
As of now, the CCPA has issued separate guidelines, including the Prevention of Misleading Advertisements in the Coaching Sector, 2024, the Prevention and Regulation of Greenwashing or Misleading Environmental Claims, 2024, and the Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023, among others.
The CCPA is also working on bringing separate guidelines for surrogate advertisements. The norms have been finalized, and they are slated to be released soon.
And read | Telecom operators to boost network coverage, capacity in small towns, villages
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