Crackdown on pesky telemarketers garners Rs6 lakh
17 Dec 2011
If you have lately noticed some relief from unwanted marketing calls and messages on your mobile phone in recent weeks, it may be thanks to the much-awaited crackdown on these by the authorities concerned.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has received Rs6.05 lakh in fines from Vodafone Essar, Tata Teleservices and Loop Mobile for violation of rules on telemarketing, minister of state for information technology and communications Milind Deora told the the Rajya Sabha today.
"Since the coming into force of the telecom commercial communications customer's preference regulations, TRAI has penalised registered telemarketers in 18 cases from 27 September (when the new rules came into force) to 30 November 2011,'' Deora said in a written reply.
TRAI has received Rs3.30 lakh from Tata Teleservices, Rs2 lakh from Vodafone, and Rs75,000 from Loop Telecom, Deora said.
During the period, TRAI has sent 3,409 notices to parties who were not registered as telemarketers but were carrying on telemarketing activities. Of these, 410 connections have been disconnected.
Prior to the new regulation, which was passed in 2010 but took over a year to implement, an average of 47,454 complaints were received per month. These have fallen after the implementation, Deora said.
Under the regulations, customers need to register with their service provider for registration in the National Customer Preference Registry.
No complaints have been received regarding the access providers refusing to register new customers in the registry, Deora said.
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