Lok Sabha Question No. 3065 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-03-19
Subject: Controlling of Spam Calls by TRAI
Ministry: COMMUNICATION
Asked by: Shri Eatala Rajender, Shri  Selvaganapathi T.M.

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3065 TO BE ANSWERED ON 19 TH  MARCH, 2025

## CONTROLLING OF SPAM CALLS BY TRAI

## 3065.   SHRI SELVAGANAPATHI T.M.: SHRI EATALA RAJENDER:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATION be pleased to state:

(a) whether as per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)'s notified tighter rules for spam calls and text messages over telecom networks and amendments to the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, telcos are required to accept complaints against  spam after  up  to  a  week  of  receiving  such  calls,  act  on  unregistered  telemarketers  faster (within five days), and impose lower tolerance thresholds for reported spammers;

(b) if so, the details thereof/implementation status along with complaints received/solved/violations noticed/action taken;

(c) whether it is true that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will start a pilot project to on  board  paper  based  and  past  permissions  given  by  customers  for  receiving  commercial communications onto its digital distributed ledger technology platform; and

- (d) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT (DR. PEMMASANI CHANDRA SEKHAR)

- (a) The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has amended the Telecom Commercial Communications  Customer  Preference  Regulations  (TCCCPR),  2018  on  12.02.2025  which  has, inter-alia, following provisions:
- i. A customer can now make a complaint about spam/ Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) within 7 days of receiving spam as compared to earlier 3-day time limit.
- ii. Time limit for taking action by the access providers against the UCC from unregistered senders has been reduced from 30 days to 5 days.
- iii. To ensure prompt action against the senders of UCC, the criterion for taking action against them  has  been  revised  and  made  more  stringent.  As  compared  to  earlier  criterion  of 'having  10  complaints  against  the  sender  in  last  7  days'  to  trigger  action,  it  has  been modified to 'having 5 complaints against the sender in last 10 days'.
- (b) These amendments shall come into force after thirty days from the date of their publication in the Official Gazette except regulation 8, regulation 17; sub-clauses (a) and (b) of regulation 20; and sub-clause (b) of regulation 21, which shall come into force after sixty days of publication of these  regulations  in  the  Official  Gazette.  Moreover,  TRAI  issued  directions  on  13.08.2024  to disconnect all telecom resources of unregistered Senders/ Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs) which

are being used for making spam calls and to blacklist such Senders. Access Providers have taken widespread actions which has led to a significant reduction in the complaints against UTMs from 1,89,419 in August 2024 to 1,34,821 in January 2025. More than 1150 Number of entities/individuals have been blacklisted & more than 18.8 lakh telecom resources have been disconnected.

(c) & (d) TRAI has not taken any decision to start a pilot project to onboard paper based and past  permissions  given  by  customers  for  receiving  commercial  communications  onto  its  digital distributed ledger technology platform.

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