The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Wednesday appealed to all telemarketing agencies to immediately register themselves with the National Do Not Call (NDNC) registry to make the drive against unsolicited commercial calls (UCCs) successful.
The COAI appeal came a day after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that over 380 million telephone numbers had been uploaded in the NDNC database by the various telemarketers for scrubbing, out of which 24.2 million were in the category of Do Not Call numbers which telemarketers were not allowed to call.
“For the UCC Regulation to be successful, the basic requirement is that all telemarketers abide by the rules prescribed by TRAI. COAI, on behalf of all subscribers, strongly urges all telemarketers and telemarketing agencies to immediately register with the NDNC,” said COAI Director General T V Ramachandran.
Asking telemarketers to scrub their calling lists prior to making any telemarketing calls or sending telemarketing SMS messages, he said the calling subscribers already registered with the NDNC violated the law and would invite strict penalties and punitive action.
According to TRAI, after registration and activation of their numbers on the NDNC registry, only 3,685 subscribers have complained about receipt of UCC, which were being processed by respective telecom service providers.
“However, nearly half of such complaints pertain to telemarketers and commercial establishments who are not registered and are calling or sending SMS for promoting their own establishments like shops, real estate, coaching classes, etc.,” it said.-A DH REPORT
Leave Your Comments