Pesky call complaints rise steadily since 2022, over 82% against unregistered telemarketers, Governments tells Parliament

Grievances against pesky calls and messages have been rising year-on-year since 2022, with more than 82% of complaints filed against unregistered telemarketers, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

Data shared by Minister of State for Telecom Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha showed that the first half of 2026 has already recorded over 20.75 lakh complaints, more than two-thirds of the total grievances received against pesky callers last year.

Also read: Consumers complain about 17.22 lakh pesky calls, SMS till May this year: MoS Telecom


"As per the data furnished by the access providers, out of the total 20,75,098 UCC complaints registered with access providers during the period Jan'26 to Jun'26, more than 82 per cent complaints, i.e., 17,21,582 complaints, were against unregistered senders/telemarketers," the minister said, responding to a question from Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh.

Year-on-year complaint trend

A total of over 31.09 lakh complaints were received in 2025. Complaints against pesky callers stood at 12.84 lakh in 2021, before declining to 10.83 lakh in 2022. They then rose 26% to 13.62 lakh in 2023, 42% to 19.38 lakh in 2024, and 60% to 31.09 lakh in 2025 — indicating an accelerating pace of grievances even as regulatory action has intensified.

Disconnections have not kept pace

While complaints have climbed, action on disconnecting telecom resources misused for such communications has not followed a similar trend. According to the minister, 19.21 lakh telecom connections of pesky callers were disconnected between August and December 2024. This fell sharply to 1.94 lakh disconnections in 2025, and the first half of 2026 has seen only 79,000 telecom resources disconnected.

Action against entities on the rise

Unlike disconnections, action against entities sponsoring pesky calls and messages has seen a continuous rise. As many as 155 registered principal entities on whose behalf pesky calls or SMSes were carried out were blacklisted between August and December 2024, rising to 995 in 2025, and 1,406 in the first half of 2026 alone.

Also read: Telecom operators flag 24.4 billion spam calls, messages in April-June: TRAI

Action on registered telemarketers, however, has tapered: 41 registered telemarketers were blacklisted between August and December 2024, 12 in 2025, and seven till June this year.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) governs unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) through the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), which mandate telemarketers to register on the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform and route commercial messages through approved headers and templates.

The Department of Telecommunications and TRAI have periodically tightened these norms, including stricter KYC and traceability requirements for telemarketers, as complaints from consumers on unregistered and spam communication have continued to mount.

With PTI inputs