Meity evaluating Trai request for regulating caller ID apps: S Krishnan

Meity is evaluating Trai's request to act against caller ID apps under the IT Act as banks seek a dedicated number series to ensure genuine customer calls are answered

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) is evaluating a request from India’s telecom regulator to be designated as an authorised agency to regulate apps that offer caller identification and call management services, Meity Secretary S Krishnan said on Thursday, adding that the ministry was in discussions with the department of telecom (DoT) on the matter. 

“They have reached out to us to seek powers to regulate call-management apps like Truecaller. We are consulting the DoT on granting powers and we will have to see legally what to do about it,” Krishnan said on the sidelines of the “CII GCC Summit”.

Caller ID apps like Truecaller do not directly fall under the regulatory scrutiny and jurisdiction of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the regulator. As intermediaries, they are governed by rules and regulations falling under the Information Technology Act, 2000. 

Truecaller Chief Executive Officer Rishit Jhunjhunwala said in a post on X on July 8 that what Trai sought was “unacceptable”. Trai regulates licensed providers of telecom, internet and broadcasting services in accordance with the Trai Act. 

According to officials, Trai has not asked for powers to regulate these apps but to be designated an “authorised agency” by Meity in accordance with the IT Act so that it can act on violations of its regulations by apps. The issue stems from banking and financial-sector entities seeking Trai’s intervention to ensure that calls they make to customers do not get blocked by platforms like Truecaller. 

“Banks had raised concerns that 140- and 1600-series calls were getting categorised as spam or blocked, so their access to consumers was being disrupted. They had also said that calls relating to loan recovery and information of incorrect password or if there’s any unauthorised transaction were also getting blocked,” a senior official said. 

A senior banker at a private lender said that while 1600-series calls were being used for transactional calls and SMSes to customers, once a customer blocked a 1600-series number or marked it as spam, banks could not reach the person through that number again. 

A senior executive at a state-owned bank said: “Calls from banks are often flagged as spam because lenders make a large number of customer calls each day. Trai has suggested that banks use a special numbering series so customers can easily identify genuine bank calls. The proposal is to have a separate number series for such calls, and it is being discussed.” 

Truecaller had introduced a “Frequently Blocked” tag for numbers belonging to the 140- and 1600- series. It flags a number blocked by many people, but does not label it “spam”. 

Experts noted that enabling Trai to regulate caller ID apps could open the door to regulating other apps not under its jurisdiction. “It is an overreach. It’s a bad idea for the simple reason that any extension of Trai powers to online applications is a thin end of the wedge, and therefore a problem. This may set a precedent for regulating other apps,” Mah­esh Uppal, director, Com First India, a Delhi-based consulting firm specialising in telecom sector.  

 

Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on July 8 that Trai seeking to regulate caller ID apps ‘made no sense’ and was ‘unacceptable.’

 

Jhunjhunwala added that Trai has mandated the platform to not show any community reported spam information, effectively restricting it to show 140- and 1600- numbers as spam. However, he said that over 51 million calls from both series went unanswered every day.

 

“In the past 8 months, Truecaller users have ignored 81% of all 140-series calls and 79% of all 1600-series calls. Some of these calls are of course legit, which Truecaller would have displayed with its verified badge and consumers would have answered these calls. Instead, consumers and legit businesses both lost out,” he said.

 

The executive added that daily blocking actions of the 1600 series rose 208 per cent since October 2025 and 74 million manual blocking actions have taken place. Truecaller users actively block 400,000 from 140- series and 125,000 calls from the 1600- series, everyday, he added.

 

Caller scrutiny

• Looking into Trai’s proposal to regulate caller ID apps: Meity secy
• Banks flagged issue of consumers not taking calls with series 1600- /140- 
• Banks’ ability to raise fraudulent transactions, pursue loan recovery getting impacted, officials said  
• Trai seeking to become authorised agency under IT Act to flag violations

(With inputs from Aathira Varier & Anupreksha Jain in Mumbai )