Lok Sabha Question No. 4541 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-03-30
Subject: Telecommunication System in Tribal Areas
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS
Asked by: Durga Das Uikey, Gajendra Singh Patel

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4551 TO BE ANSWERED ON 30 TH  MARCH, 2022

## STEPS TO PREVENT UNWANTED CALLS AND MESSAGES

## 4551.   KUNWAR DANISH ALI:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS be pleased to state:

- (a) the steps taken by the Government for preventing unwanted calls and messages by the telemarketing companies and property dealers;
- (b) whether the Government has any plan to impose penalty on telemarketing companies and property dealers for messaging and calling mobile subscribers;
- (c) if so, the details thereof and the action taken by the Government in this regard;
- (d) whether  telecom  service  providers  are  violating  Telecom  Commercial  Communication Customers Preference Regulation-2018; and
- (e) if so, the details thereof and the steps taken/being taken by the Government thereon?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS (SHRI DEVUSINH CHAUHAN)

(a) To  curb  the  menace  of  unwanted  calls  and  messages  i.e.  Unsolicited  Commercial Communications (UCC) by the telemarketing companies and property dealers, TRAI has issued the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 ('TCCCPR2018') on 19.07.2018, which puts in place a framework for controlling UCC.

For  curbing  spam,  these  regulations  require  all  relevant  entities  involved  in  sending commercial communications to get themselves registered with any of the Access Providers (i.e. Telecom Service Providers). Such entities include Senders or Principal Entities (PEs), Registered Telemarketers (RTMs) etc.  Access Providers are required to establish a system to ensure that PEs and  RTMs  comply  with  the  regulatory  requirements.  In  case  of  non-compliance,  there  are provisions  in  the  regulations  that  TRAI  may  impose  Financial  Disincentives  on  the  Access Providers. Access Providers may impose financial disincentives on participating entities in case of violation of regulations that can be attributed to failure of functions assigned to such entities.

(b) to (e) These  regulations  i.e.  the  TCCCPR-2018  have  provision  to  impose  Financial Disincentives and TRAI has imposed Financial Disincentives of Rs. 34,99,98,000/- for the Quarter Ending June, 2020 . Further, Show Cause Notices (SCNs) have been issued upto Quarter Ending June, 2021.

The details of violations reported by Telecom Service Providers i.e. Access Providers to TRAI under TCCCPR-2018 are as under:-

(i) UCC Complaints in last two Quarters reported by Access Providers are as below:

| Quarter Ending   |   No. of Complaints reported by Access Providers |
|------------------|--------------------------------------------------|
| July-Sept, 2021  |                                           387280 |
| Oct-Dec, 2021    |                                           305792 |

(ii)  Actions taken in case of Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs) for last two quarters is as below:

| Quarter Ending   |   Imposed Usage Cap during investigation of complaints |   Issued warning notices for first instance of violation |   Imposed usage caps for second instance of violation |   Disconnected connections for violating regulations for third time. |
|------------------|--------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| July- Sept, 2021 |                                                  70175 |                                                   106973 |                                                 17241 |                                                                 4781 |
| Oct-Dec, 2021    |                                                  54468 |                                                    87753 |                                                 15973 |                                                                 5890 |

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