New Delhi: The telecom regulator has called out the country’s major banks and telemarketing firms for failure to comply with norms to control pesky SMSes despite individual reminders sent to them repeatedly.
“Unfortunately, despite repeated communication, all major banks and big telemarketers sending SMS have failed to fulfil regulatory requirements. All are being notified individually also,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in a press note on Tuesday.
It has once again alerted all business entities to ensure compliance with norms to control pesky SMSes while operators will continue to allow SMS traffic to flow unhindered to avoid any disruption to the public.
The move comes after a review meeting between operators and Trai officials on Tuesday.
“Major reasons observed for not meeting the regulatory compliance are content template not registered, content Id missing, mismatch in template registered and message sent etc,” the authority said.
Trai is likely to publish a list of defaulters who are yet to register their SMS content and comply with the regulation to control spam SMSes, a person aware of the matter said.
Telecom Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) is a directive of Trai announced in 2018 aimed at weeding out pesky commercial messages. The regulations entirely came into force from February 28, 2019.
“Since, then TRAI has been through, Telecom Service Providers (TSP), communicating with the Principal Entities to fulfill the regulatory requirements,” Trais said.
It added that the regulation not only helps in preventing spam but also helps in preventing fraudulent messages purporting to originate from banks, financial institutions, or other trusted sources.
There are close to 200,000 registered business entities and government bodies who send commercial SMSes as per data on registration portals of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Reliance Jio and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).
