Parliament Question: Unsolicited Commercial Communication Complaints

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 771 TO BE ANSWERED ON 4TH FEBRUARY, 2026 UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL COMMUNICATION COMPLAINTS

771. SHRI AZAD KIRTI JHA:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS be pleased to state:

(a) the total number of Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) complaints received against Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs) by Access Providers during the last five years, year and service-provider-wise;

(b) the action taken by Access Providers and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) against such UTMs, including warnings issued, numbers disconnected and entities blacklisted;

(c) the total number of registered companies penalised for unsolicited communications during the same period, the cumulative amount of penalties imposed and the extent to which such actions have improved compliance;

(d) the present status of the draft 2024 Guidelines for Curtailing Spam Communications, reasons for delay in final notification and the expected timeline for implementation; and

(e) the interim measures and technological or regulatory steps being taken by the Government and TRAI to curb spam calls, protect user data privacy, strengthen consumer grievance redressal and reduce the overall frequency of unsolicited communications? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT (DR. PEMMASANI CHANDRA SEKHAR)

(a) The total number of Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) complaints received against Unregistered Telemarketers (UTMs) by Terminating Access Provider (TAP) during the last five years, year-wise and service-provider-wise, are as follows:

Year-wise and service-provider-wise UTM Complaints Year Airtel BSNL MTNL QTL Tata VIL STPI RCL RJIL 2021 370193 24181 993 0 0 237874 0 2 222489 2022 443498 19312 299 0 0 195805 0 0 245440 2023 566478 20157 272 0 0 189950 0 0 446088 2024 809902 35372 186 0 0 248054 0 0 653813 2025 1179994 73370 25 0 0 273106 0 0 1075579 Total 3370065 172392 1775 0 0 1144789 0 2 2643409

(b) Action taken by Access Providers against the UTMs are as under:

1Number of Number of Number of unregistered Number of unregistered unregistered senders who were unregistered senders who senders found given warning senders found were put under violating second Period against first violating third Usage Cap, time and usage instance of or more number during the cap imposed, violations, after of times and investigation after completion completion of disconnected phase of investigation investigation Jan-21 to Dec-21 221690 346429 54865 15382 Jan-22 to Dec-22 258041 409739 77213 32032 Jan-23 to Dec-23 256220 399274 57565 27043 Jan-24 to July-24 417083 580557 63819 1910165* Jan-25 to Dec-25 475637 800694 90156 43163 * On August 13, 2024, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued a Direction mandating the disconnection of all telecom resources of UTMs involved in making commercial calls in violation of the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) 2018 regulations. Following this Direction, 18.8 lakh numbers were disconnected by Access Providers.

(c) Based on the information provided by Access Providers, 1295 telecom resources of Registered Telemarketers (RTMs) were disconnected for the period of Oct 2024 – Nov 2025, by the Access Providers. TRAI has also imposed Financial Disincentives (FDs) of Rs. 153.8 crore on Access Providers for closing UCC complaints in contravention of the provisions of the TCCCPR.

(d) TRAI has issued various Directions in 2024 dated 13.08.2024, 20.08.2024, 28.10.2024,

30.11.2024 under TCCCPR-2018 and amended the TCCCPR-2018 on 12.02.2025. Through this amendment, provisions for action against the UCC senders was further strengthened. The actions now range from immediate suspension of connections to disconnection of all the connections of the UCC sender across TSPs.

(e) TRAI governs UCC under the regulatory framework viz. TCCCPR. TRAI has adopted two- pronged strategy, which involves provisions for legitimate commercial communications by the registered entities, and measures to curb UCC from unregistered senders. Notable actions taken by

TRAI are as follows: i. As per TRAI’s mandate, more than 3 lakh senders and 21,000 telemarketers have registered on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform. ii. A customer who does not want to receive promotional communication from (RTM), can register their preferences and lodge complaint against UCC within 7 days through any of the following means – a. Using TRAI Do Not Disturb (DND) Mobile App, b. Through TSPs App or Web portal, c. by sending SMS to short code to 1909, d. by calling on 1909.

In addition to above channels, complaints can also be lodged on Sanchar Saathi portal of Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

2iii. TRAI has mandated the use of – (a) 140 series numbers for making promotional calls, and

(b) registered headers for sending any commercial SMS. In December 2025, more than 7.5 crore SMS and voice calls were blocked per day by DLT system on an average, based on the preferences of the customers.

iv. Based on the complaints received, it is observed that majority of the UCC is from UTMs who use regular 10-digit numbers instead of 140 series bypassing the DLT platform and therefore customer preferences. To tackle this, major TSPs have implemented AI-based solutions to detect suspected spam and alert the customers. In December 2025, on an average, more than 31 crores calls and SMS were flagged as suspected spam per day by the TSPs.

v. TRAI has prescribed to use special 1600 series for financial sector for making service and transactional calls to enable consumers to distinguish such calls. ***** 3