New Delhi: Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said DoT and TRAI had taken widespread action to curb spam calls and SMS, including blocking crores of communications and disconnecting lakhs of numbers.
In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, the minister shared data on Unsolicited Commercial Communications complaints received by telecom service providers from January to December 2025. During this period, monthly complaints ranged from 1.16 lakh to 3.94 lakh, with a steady rise through mid-2025 before fluctuating later in the year.
According to the data, complaints against unregistered telemarketers formed the bulk each month. Therefore, regulators focused enforcement on such senders. Scindia said TRAI governed UCC through the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations.
He said TRAI followed a two-pronged strategy. On one hand, it enabled legitimate commercial communication by registered entities. On the other, it tightened measures against unregistered senders.
Spam calls curbed through tech, penalties and disconnections
Scindia said more than 3 lakh senders and 21,000 telemarketers had registered on the DLT platform. Meanwhile, consumers could block promotions and lodge complaints through the DND app, TSP portals, SMS or calls to 1909, and the Sanchar Saathi portal.
In December 2025 alone, the DLT system blocked over 7.5 crore SMS and voice calls per day on average. In addition, TRAI mandated 140-series numbers for promotional calls and registered headers for commercial SMS.
However, the minister said most UCC originated from unregistered telemarketers using regular 10-digit numbers. Therefore, major telecom operators deployed AI-based tools to detect spam and warn users.
Scindia said TRAI directed TSPs in August 2024 to disconnect violators. Later, amendments in February 2025 strengthened enforcement. As a result, around 21 lakh telecom connections were disconnected. TRAI also imposed financial disincentives of ₹153.8 crore on TSPs for violations.
