Trai blames inadequate data for ignoring complaints

On the face of it the ban on unsolicited communications, which came into effect on September 27, appears to be a strong action on the CentreRs s part but numbers tell a different story. According to official figures accessed by Mail Today, of the 2,038 complaints lodged by customers in three weeks till October 20, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has rejected 1,400 of these complaints, while initiating action against four operators. This includes two cases against Vodafone and one each against Tata Teleservices and Aircel.

However, Trai claims it has resolved 638 cases, which largely pertained to complaints of non-registration on the National Customer Preference Registry (earlier known as the National Do Not Call registry or the NDNC) and also issued a warning to telemarketers and sent 55 notices to operators so far.

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However, Trai has not spelt out why the 1,400 complaints were rejected. "Many of the complainants did not provide us with adequate information. It is difficult to track them down. There are other complaints where the complainant is not registered with the NDNC," said a Trai official.

Despite complaints flooding Trai about NDNC not being available or not accepting registration, Trai has been ineffective in increasing the registrations on the NDNC. Only 2.8 crore of over 85 crore phone users in India are registered with the Do-Not-Call-Call registry.

"Those operators who have big stakes in the telemarketing business are not letting their customers opt for registration on NDNC as it would eat away their telemarketing business," said telecom observer and member of the telecom user group, Satyanarayan Aggarwal.

The government ineffectiveness in dealing with violators against regulation on filtering mechanism for unwanted calls and messages can also be well gauged by the fact that the department of telecommunications (DoT) and Trai are unable to track the violators as they send unsolicited messages through the Internet from servers outside India.

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal had earlier said that the government is unable to track the calls and message sent through these Internet servers, which have their systems placed in other countries. "We have no jurisdiction over it. We do not even know who the person is at the moment.

I do not have any solution," Sibal had added. He had also said that the effective implementation of the regulations on telemarketers will be an important challenge.

Most of the calls from telemarketers post-regulation are not always from the assigned number series beginning with '140Rs . . Even TraiRs s move of slapping a five paisa termination charge on commercial messages from October 25 is unlikely to deter telemarketers despite the fear of stringent penalty, given the size and potential of the telemarketing business in India, said industry observers.

"The problems being faced by subscribers is the creation of the operators. Operators would lose business from telemarketers, so why will they be serious about successfully implementing UCC regulations. Selective blocking of services from telemarketers is another nuisance for the common man," said Randhir Verma, a Chandigarh-based member of the telecom users group.

Courtesy: Mail Today