Say goodbye to unsolicited telemarketing calls

You can finally say goodbye to unsolicited telemarketing calls. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or Trai has issued a regulation to ensure that only those who are okay with being called, can be called. All that is needed now is the Reserve Bank of India, or RBI's and the Department of Telecom, or DoT's approval.

Now you need not worry about getting telemarketing calls, which are always at the wrong time. The telecom regulator has finally come to the rescue. By placing a request with your telecom service provider, you can now say goodbye to those "do you need a credit card calls." So, how will the mechanism work?

 

Once you make it clear to your operators, they will register your number in the "do not call" registry, which will be maintained by the National Informatic Center, or NIC.
 

Telemarketing agents will have to compulsorily register themselves with the DoT as "other service providers," or OSPs, who can only call those, who don't mind being disturbed. But what if you still get those annoying calls??
 

Nripendra Misra, Chairman, Trai, said, "The first time we will give a warning. Second violation will see a tariff imposed on the telemarketers in the range of Rs 500-1,000 per call. The next violation will lead to discontinuation of service."

 

But can the regulator revoke the license of these telemarketing companies? The issue has not been looked into at least for now. It is the banking sector that could potentially be the worst hit on account of these norms. Almost 80% of such calls originate from tele-banking companies.

 

According to the regulator, there are over 30,000 telemarketing companies, of which more than three-fourth are not registered with DoT. This regulation, however, will be passed only after Trai gets approval from both the DoT and RBI. But the regulator is of the opinion that there shouldn't be a problem with the permission and hopes that customers will finally get to hang up on unsolicited telemarketing calls.