Lok Sabha Question No. 771 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2026-02-04
Subject: Unsolicited Commercial Communication Complaints
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS
Asked by: Shri Azad Kirti Jha

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 771 TO BE ANSWERED ON 4 TH  FEBRUARY, 2026

## UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL COMMUNICATION COMPLAINTS

## 771. SHRI AZAD KIRTI JHA:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS be pleased to state:

(a) the  total  number  of  Unsolicited  Commercial  Communication  (UCC) complaints  received against Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs) by Access Providers during the last five years, year and service-provider-wise;

(b) the action taken by Access Providers and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) against such UTMs, including warnings issued, numbers disconnected and entities blacklisted;

(c) the total number of registered companies penalised for unsolicited communications during the same period, the cumulative amount of penalties imposed and the extent to which such actions have improved compliance;

(d) the present status of the draft 2024 Guidelines for Curtailing Spam Communications, reasons for delay in final notification and the expected timeline for implementation; and

(e) the interim measures and technological or regulatory steps being taken by the Government and TRAI to curb spam calls, protect user data privacy, strengthen consumer grievance redressal and reduce the overall frequency of unsolicited communications?

## ANSWER

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

(a) The total number of Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) complaints received against Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs) by Terminating Access Provider (TAP) during the last five years, year-wise and service-provider-wise, are as follows:

|       | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   | Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints   |
|-------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|
| Year  | Airtel                                               | BSNL                                                 | MTNL                                                 | QTL                                                  | Tata                                                 | VIL                                                  | STPI                                                 | RCL                                                  | RJIL                                                 |
| 2021  | 370193                                               | 24181                                                | 993                                                  | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 237874                                               | 0                                                    | 2                                                    | 222489                                               |
| 2022  | 443498                                               | 19312                                                | 299                                                  | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 195805                                               | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 245440                                               |
| 2023  | 566478                                               | 20157                                                | 272                                                  | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 189950                                               | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 446088                                               |
| 2024  | 809902                                               | 35372                                                | 186                                                  | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 248054                                               | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 653813                                               |
| 2025  | 1179994                                              | 73370                                                | 25                                                   | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 273106                                               | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 1075579                                              |
| Total | 3370065                                              | 172392                                               | 1775                                                 | 0                                                    | 0                                                    | 1144789                                              | 0                                                    | 2                                                    | 2643409                                              |

- (b) Action taken by Access Providers against the UTMs are as under:

| Period            |   Number of unregistered senders who were put under Usage Cap, during the investigation phase |   Number of unregistered senders who were given warning against first instance of violations, after completion of investigation |   Number of unregistered senders found violating second time and usage cap imposed, after completion of investigation | Number of unregistered senders found violating third or more number of times and disconnected   |
|-------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Jan-21 to Dec-21  |                                                                                        221690 |                                                                                                                          346429 |                                                                                                                 54865 | 15382                                                                                           |
| Jan-22 to Dec-22  |                                                                                        258041 |                                                                                                                          409739 |                                                                                                                 77213 | 32032                                                                                           |
| Jan-23 to Dec-23  |                                                                                        256220 |                                                                                                                          399274 |                                                                                                                 57565 | 27043                                                                                           |
| Jan-24 to July-24 |                                                                                        417083 |                                                                                                                          580557 |                                                                                                                 63819 | 1910165*                                                                                        |
| Jan-25 to Dec-25  |                                                                                        475637 |                                                                                                                          800694 |                                                                                                                 90156 | 43163                                                                                           |

*  On  August  13,  2024,  Telecom  Regulatory  Authority  of  India  (TRAI)  issued  a  Direction mandating the disconnection of all telecom resources of UTMs involved in making commercial calls in  violation  of  the  Telecom  Commercial  Communications  Customer  Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) 2018 regulations. Following this Direction, 18.8 lakh numbers were disconnected by Access Providers.

(c) Based  on  the  information  provided  by  Access  Providers,  1295  telecom  resources  of Registered Telemarketers (RTMs) were disconnected for the period of Oct 2024 - Nov 2025, by the Access  Providers.  TRAI  has  also  imposed  Financial  Disincentives  (FDs)  of  Rs.  153.8  crore  on Access Providers for closing UCC complaints in contravention of the provisions of the TCCCPR.

(d) TRAI  has  issued  various  Directions  in  2024  dated  13.08.2024,  20.08.2024,  28.10.2024, 30.11.2024  under  TCCCPR-2018  and amended  the TCCCPR-2018  on  12.02.2025.  Through  this amendment, provisions for action against the UCC senders was further strengthened. The actions now range from immediate suspension of connections to disconnection of all the connections of the UCC sender across TSPs.

(e) TRAI governs UCC under the regulatory framework viz. TCCCPR. TRAI has adopted twopronged  strategy,  which  involves  provisions  for  legitimate  commercial  communications  by  the registered entities, and measures to curb UCC from unregistered senders. Notable actions taken by TRAI are as follows:

- i. As per TRAI's mandate, more than 3 lakh senders and 21,000 telemarketers have registered on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform.
- ii. A customer who does not want to receive promotional communication from (RTM), can register their preferences and lodge complaint against UCC within 7 days through any of the following means -
- a. Using TRAI Do Not Disturb (DND) Mobile App,
- b. Through TSPs App or Web portal,
- c. by sending SMS to short code to 1909,
- d. by calling on 1909.

In  addition  to above channels, complaints can also be lodged on Sanchar Saathi portal of Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

- iii. TRAI has mandated the use of - (a) 140 series numbers for making promotional calls, and (b) registered headers for sending any commercial SMS. In December 2025, more than 7.5 crore SMS and voice calls were blocked per day by DLT system on an average, based on the preferences of the customers.
- iv. Based on the complaints received, it is observed that majority of the UCC is from UTMs who use regular 10-digit numbers instead of 140 series bypassing the DLT platform and therefore customer preferences. To tackle this, major TSPs have implemented AI-based solutions  to  detect  suspected spam and alert  the customers.   In  December  2025,  on  an average, more than 31 crores calls and SMS were flagged as suspected spam per day by the TSPs.
- v. TRAI has prescribed to use special 1600 series for financial sector for making service and transactional calls to enable consumers to distinguish such calls.

*****