Do-not-call registry fails to enthuse subscribers

Despite the hoopla, the ‘National Do Not Call Registry’ (NDNC) set up by the government has managed to enthuse only a mere 5 per cent of the total telephone subscriber base in its first year of functioning.

According to the latest report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), only around 18 million telephone subscribers out of the total subscriber base of more than 344 million (mobile as well as fixed line subscribers) who have opted to register in NDNC.

The NDNC was established after growing consumer complaints that they were getting unsolicited calls from marketing companies which was impinging on their privacy.

The NDNC, set up last year, is a database of telephone numbers of those subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial calls. “Measures like this are not something that people proactively adopt. Therefore, there is a need to spread awareness of this option as well as setting up better deterrents in case of abuse or neglect of this scheme,” says telecom analyst Mahesh Uppal.

Out of these registered subscribers, urban areas like Delhi and Mumbai constitute around 40 per cent along with states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa. “There is a lack of awareness about NDNC in the country. Besides the telemarketers, operators also have vested interests in not promoting this in a big way. However, they have to realise that this will cause harm in the long run and is not the best way of building customer loyalty,” says Uppal.

Trai is, however, upbeat about the success that the NDNC has witnessed over the past year. The regulator claims that complaints of non-compliance were received from only 0.44 per cent of the total registered subscribers. Of the total 18 million subscribers who registered in the past six months, around 81,000 complaints were received by various service providers. Of these, more than 79,000 complaints have been addressed and around 1,600 are still pending, said Trai.

Trai data also show that till now over 10,000 telephones of the telemarketers have been disconnected on account of repeated violation of the regulation. Out of these, 8,602 disconnections are of those telemarketers who are not registered with the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). Further, 8,543 telemarketers have been fined Rs 500 and 2,801 have been fined Rs 1,000 for violation of the NDNC rules.

Analysts opine that the penalty should be more stringent for the regulation to be taken more seriously. “It is definitely a good step in the right direction, but it is not enough,” says Uppal.

The NDNC was set up under the “Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulations, 2007” issued by Trai and came into operation on October 12, 2007. All the registered telemarketers are required to submit to the NDNC the list of telephone numbers which they want to call for telemarketing purposes.