TNN
New Delhi, Mar 18: Mobile subscribers registered with the national do-not-call (NDNC) registry have reason to rejoice.
Giving in to the growing outrage over the menace of unsolicited calls and SMSs, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has announced stiff penalties on telecom service providers and telemarketers.
The regulator said on Monday that for the first unsolicited communication, a service provider would have to pay a penalty of up to Rs 5,000, which could go up to Rs 20,000 for each subsequent communication.
A telemarketer would have to pay a penalty of Rs 500 for the first unsolicited communication, and Rs 1,000 for every subsequent communication. The Times of India had reported on January 17 that TRAI was planning such a strict regulation.
TRAI has faced flak from Parliament, the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court, RBI and consumer groups on account of pesky commercial communication and is now admitting that a harsher financial disincentive has become a necessity to address the non-compliance of its regulation.
Service providers are not happy with the new rules. When contacted, COAI's T V Ramachandran said he was deeply disappointed.
"We consider it unfair to service providers who are merely conduits for these calls," he said.
Telecom consultant Mahesh Uppal said: "TRAI has taken the easy way out. It has failed to address the issue of compliance and enforcement. Service providers are just intermediaries. It is not a good idea to penalize them."
According to Uppal, TRAI could have addressed the issue of compliance in a better way by offering consumers an opt-in choice for unsolicited communication rather than the present opt-out. The Times of India was the first to suggest this almost a year ago when Trai first introduced its regulation.
Ideally, TRAI must simply list all existing and new mobile numbers under the NDNC registry. At this stage, consumers should have the right to indicate their willingness to receive commercial calls and messages. That is when the consumer can opt out of the NDNC registry.