Govt to finalise a draft rules to check unwanted business calls, messages

New Delhi: The Centre is nearing to finalise a draft guidelines to harness pestering business calls or what is called ‘unsolicited business communication’, The Indian Express reported.

The meeting of a committee set up by the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) on May 10 discussed ‘in detail’ Guidelines for the Prevention and Regulation of Unsolicited and Unwarranted Business Communication, 2024, which is ready.

Representatives from Department of Telecommunications, Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI), Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Vodafone, Reliance and Airtel attended the meeting chaired by Secretary, DoCA, Nidhi Khare.

“The draft guidelines define various important terms, applicability with appropriate illustrations and provide that the guidelines shall not be in derogation of any other law. The draft guidelines also list out various types of communication that will be deemed to be unsolicited/ unwarranted communication,” the outlet reported citing an official.

“Various suggestions were received by the committee members on these aspects. Based on these suggestions, the department (DoCA) will soon finalise the Guidelines for Unsolicited and Unwarranted Business Communication, 2024,” the official reportedly said. A subgroup of the committee set up by DoCA in February prepared the draft.

The members of the committee at the meeting arrived at a ‘general consensus’ over unwarranted commercial communication becoming “a huge cause of concern and needed to be dealt with proactively”.

“It was further pointed out that despite numerous measures taken by TRAI and the Department of Telecommunication (DoT), the number of pesky and fraudulent calls remain unabated,” an official was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, TRAI earlier asked smartphone makers to enable caller name feature and sought telecos to activate its display on phones.

It came up at the meeting that TRAI had already asked banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and trading companies to develop and deploy a Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) system, the official reportedly said.