New Delhi, September 27: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued guidelines to telecom regulators to stop all unwanted telemarketing calls and messages from this week.
Telecom companies will have to pay a fine of up to Rs 2.5 lakh for disturbing people registered under the do not disturb category. To save yourself from all unwanted communication, all you need to do is register your number with the ‘National Customer Preference Registry’. To register you can either dial toll free number 1909, or log onto www.nccptrai.gov.in and click on ‘How to register?’ under the tab that says ‘Information for customers’.
However, in case you don’t want to block all the information, you can opt for partial blocking. “There is partial blocking/want info on certain sectors like healthcare, banking,” said Prashant Singhal, telecom leader, Earnst & Young.
And if you continue to receive telemarketing calls and messages a week after you’ve registered, you can complain to your phone company. You will need to give the phone number from which the call came, the date, time and brief description of the service being peddled. You can also put your grievances online.
The new regulation, however, will also affect a few critical services. Patients looking for blood donors can only send up to a 100 SMSes a day. For most others, the regulation comes as big relief.
–IANS–