Operators face Rs 20K fine for pesky calls

With no respite from pesky calls for harried phone users — even those who have signed up on the national do-not-call registry — Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Wednesday sought to arm itself with powers to impose a fine of up to Rs 20,000 on service providers not complying with its guidelines, besides suggesting higher penalty on telemarketers.

It proposed to revise the penalty to be levied on registered telemarketers to Rs 500 for the first unsolicited call and Rs 1,000 for second or any subsequent call.

To ensure that telecom operators took their job of blocking unwanted calls seriously, the regulator suggested a fine of up to Rs 5,000 for the first non-compliance, which would be hiked to up to Rs 20,000 for second and subsequent violations.

Though the proposed fine is part of a consultation paper released by Trai, it shows the failure of the present norms to deal with unwanted calls and text messages despite criticism from the Supreme Court, consumer courts and Parliament.

"The objective is to increase the effectiveness of these regulations by providing some financial sanctions to non-compliant telecom service providers and thereby reducing the nuisance and inconvenience to the subscribers of telephone/mobile services from unsolicited telemarketing calls or messages," Trai said in a release.

News Source : Samachar