TRAI Tightens Rules on Spam Calls

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is tightening measures to curb spam calls and unsolicited commercial communications that inconvenience mobile users. Special numbering series such as 140 and 1600 are already governed by separate rules to help consumers identify promotional and service or transactional calls. Calls originating from designated 1600-series numbers cannot be tagged, blocked or filtered under the current framework. TRAI is also strengthening the use of AI/ML-based systems and information sharing among telecom operators to identify unsolicited commercial communications more effectively.

The regulator has been tightening the complaint based enforcement mechanism as well. In 2025, TRAI reduced the threshold for action against unregistered senders from 10 complaints to five complaints within the specified period. Its 2026 proposals include AI/ML-based detection of unsolicited commercial communication, inter-operator information sharing and faster sender re-verification. TRAI has also proposed a maximum termination charge of 5 paise per minute for commercial robocalls originating from numbers outside the designated 140 and 1600 series.

The revised framework also focuses on making complaint redressal more transparent for consumers. Users who are dissatisfied with the action taken by their telecom service provider can approach the appellate authority. Entities using auto-dialers or robocalls for commercial communication are required to notify the originating access provider in advance about their use and purpose. TRAI is also working to institutionalise AI/ML-based UCC detection and enable sharing of intelligence across operators to identify and take action against suspected spam senders.