Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has taken several measures to combat the persistence issue of spam calls and SMS.

Complaints against spam calls show downward trend due to stringent measures: TRAI issued directions on August 13, 2024, mandating that any entity found to be making promotional voice calls in violation of regulations would face strict consequences. This includes disconnection of all telecom resources, blacklisting for up to two years, and a ban on new resource allocation during the blacklisting period. Consequent to this direction, access providers have taken widespread actions which led to a significant reduction in the complaints registered against the spam calls. The number of registered complaints against unregistered senders, as reported by the access providers, were 0.189 million in August 2024 which have reduced to 0.163 million in September 2024 (13 per cent reduction from August 2024) and 0.151 million in October 2024 (20 per cent reduction from August 2024).

Good progress in implementation of enhanced message traceability: To enhance message traceability, TRAI issued direction on August 20, 2024 and mandated that the trail of all messages from senders/principal entities (PEs) to recipients must be traceable from November 1, 2024. All access providers have since implemented the technical solutions. However, to provide a transition time for technical upgrades, and chain declaration by PEs and telemarketers, TRAI, vide its direction dated October 28, 2024, extended the time up to November 30, 2024.

To raise awareness about these measures and action to be taken by PEs and registered telemarketers (RTMs), webinars are being organised under the aegis of TRAI. The first webinar was conducted on November 12, 2024 in association with Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) and was attended by over 1,000 representatives from entities being regulated by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI). The second webinar was conducted in association with Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi) on November 19, 2024 and was attended by over 800 representatives from central and state governments departments and the entities being regulated by RBI, SEBI, PFRDA and IRDAI. In this series, another webinar is scheduled for November 25, 2024 and shall be conducted in association with Tata Teleservices Limited (TTL). Invitations have been sent to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, other Central and State Governments Departments, the entities being regulated by RBI, SEBI, PFRDA and IRDAI; Nasscom, Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) and other organisations.

As a result of these efforts, more than 13,000 PEs have already registered their chains with the respective access providers and further registration is in progress at a rapid pace. Access providers have sent many warning notices to all PEs and RTMs who have not yet implemented necessary changes.  All PEs and TMs are advised to complete the declaration of chains on priority as any message that fails to adhere to the defined telemarketer chain will be rejected.