The Hindu Business Line : Do Not Call Registry tastes limited success

New Delhi, Oct 11 A year after it was launched to check unwanted telemarketing calls, the National Do Not Call Registry has received limited success. Only 18 million mobile subscribers have registered their numbers in the registry, which is just about five per cent of the total user base. This means that the telemarketers are free to call the other 95 per cent of the cellular users.

Consumer groups blame lack of awareness among consumers and the ineffectiveness of the registry for the limited number of subscribers who have listed their numbers in the NDNC. “Operators are not doing enough to create awareness about the registry among consumers because it suits them. Even those subscribers who have listed their numbers in the registry are still getting calls from the telemarketers so consumers see no merit in the system,” said a Delhi-based consumer organisation.

Out of these registered subscribers, around 40 per cent are from the metros of Delhi, Mumbai and the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC) is a data base of telephone numbers of those subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial calls. It had come into effect on October 12, 2007.

While The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India admitted that even the 18 million registered subscribers continue to get telemarketing calls, it claimed that there has been a significant reduction in the number of such calls. “At present efforts are being made by TRAI and other stakeholders to achieve near zero tolerance in handling the non-compliant telemarketers. In the past six months, around 81,000 complaints were received by various service providers, out of which more than 79,000 complaints have been addressed and around 1,600 complaints are still pending. TRAI has also issued preliminary show-cause notices to various service providers for not taking action on the guilty telemarketers,” the regulator said.

Currently, there are 19,163 telemarketers registered with the Department of Telecommunications. According to the TRAI, the daily average of telephone numbers being uploaded to NDNC has increased from 10 million a day in October 2007 to 100 million a day as on September 2008. So far, 10,151 telephones of the telemarketers have been disconnected on account of repeated violation of the Regulation on the subject. Further, 8,543 telemarketers have been fined Rs 500 and 2,801 telemarketers have been fined Rs 1,000 for violation of NDNC rules.

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