10,151 telephones disconnected for violating NDNC norms: Trai

Telecom regulator Trai today said it has ordered disconnection of 10,151 telephones of telemarketers for repeated violation of Do Not Call Registry norms that were introduced last year.  "So far 10,151 telephones of the telemarketers have been disconnected on account of repeated violation of the Regulation on the subject.

Out of these, 8,602 disconnections are of those telemarketers who are not registered with the DoT. Further, 8,543 telemarketers have been fined Rs 500 and 2,801 telemarketers have been fined Rs 1,000 for violation of NDNC rules," Trai said in a statement. 

At present, there are 19,163 telemarketers registered with Department of Telecommunications (DoT). 

"In one year of its operations, there has been a significant reduction in the number of telemarketing calls to registered subscribers of National Do Not Call (NDNC) Registry," it added.  

Trai said that along with other stakeholders, it is taking steps to achieve near zero tolerance in handling the non-compliant telemarketers. 

In the past six months around 81,000 complaints were received by various service providers, out of which more than 79,000 complaints have been addressed.  

Considering that more than 18 million subscribers are registered, these complaints constitute about 0.44 per cent of the total registered subscribers. Trai has also issued preliminary show cause notices to various service providers for not taking action against errant telemarketers. 

NDNC is a database of telephone numbers of subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial calls. It has come into operation from October 12 2007.