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Unregistered Telemarketers to Face Penalty: TRAI

In order to curb the menace of unsolicited SMSes, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has now proposed charging unregistered telemarketers who send marketing messages to the telecom users. It mentioned that a penalty of Rs 500 will be charged on the telemarketer on first complaint and if they still continued to violate, the telecom resources will be disconnected.

Similarly in case of unwanted calls, the telemarketers will get a warning on the first complaint, followed by Rs 500 fine for the second violation and on the third instance of violation the connection will be disconnected, said TRAI

According to the sources, these measures are a part of the draft “Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference (Tenth Amendment) Regulations, 2012”. As per the draft regulation the telecom operators should take undertaking from consumers, at the time of purchase, that the SIM shall not be used for telemarketing purpose.
It also proposes to help consumers lodge complaints of such messages/calls by sending an SMS to 1909. It also asks telecom operators to inform their subscribers through text messages at least once in a year against sending any commercial communication to others.

Source: Financial Express