Shveta Singh (name changed) gets at least two unsolicited telemarketing calls and a couple of text messages every other day, from salespersons peddling wares from insurance policies to free credit cards.
Nothing unusual about it, until she swears of registering with the national do not call registry eight months ago believing that unwanted calls would stop in the next 45 days.
Singh, who has two connections (Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications), vouches that all her friends have been getting similar unwanted calls as well. While the exact number of complaints is not available, a search on the net also threw up blogs agog with complaints of pesky calls and SMSes, and lamented the ineffectiveness of the NDNC process.
On September 1, 2007, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reigned in the 'don't call regime' with setting up of the NDNC.
Subscribers had to register with the NDNC by calling the respective service provider and the marketing calls were to stop within the next 45 days. However, even after 10 months, unsolicited calls still haunt mobile users.
The telecom regulator has asked service providers to disconnect the erring telemarketers and had even proposed a fine of Rs 500 (to be imposed on the operator)
for repeated offences. However, as the menace continued, Trai decided to increase the fine to Rs 20,000 from March this year.
Interestingly, officials with the Department of Telecommunications and Trai as well as top executives of private companies admit that unsolicited calls were still being made.
"The NDNC has not been effective as envisaged, even after Trai's threatening of imposing hefty fines. This is happening because telemarketers do not scrub with the registry before making the call," a DoT official said on condition of anonymity.
The move gains significance as not a single company has been fined till date, starting from September 1, 2007, for violating the rules.
The regulator has been receiving a number of repeated complaints. But there is a process -- verifying the complaints, warning the operator and pulling up the errant service provider -- and penalties can only be imposed after the process, sources in Trai said.
