In an amendment proposed to the Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulations, 2007, TRAI says that any telecom service provider not complying with its provisions would be liable to pay up to Rs 5,000 for the first non-compliance and up to Rs 20,000 for each of the second or subsequent non-compliance.

It is proposed to revise the tariff to be levied from the registered telemarketer to Rs 500 for the first unsolicited call and and Rs 1,000 for the second or any subsequent unsolicited call made to consumers whose numbers are registered with the National Do Not Call (NDNC) registry.

The objective behind the move, said TRAI on Wednesday, was to increase the effectiveness of these regulations by providing some financial sanctions to non-compliant service providers and thus reducing the ‘nuisance and inconvenience’ to subscribers of telephone services from the unsolicited telemarketing calls and messages.
The Authority set up the NDNC Registry in October, 2007. Since then more than 7.5 million users registered for the service.

Altogether 12,183 telemarketers have registered on the registry as per regulations. Around 600 telemarketers daily access the registry for scrubbing their calling list.

Out of the approximately 85 million numbers uploaded by telemarketers for scrubbing, 78 million numbers were cleared by NDNC for calling. The remainder phone users have not yet registered themselves for the sercice and are hence open to getting telemarketing calls.