Trai pushes back on spam tag for 1600, 140 numbers

New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday clarified that tagging, blocking and filtering calls originating from 1600 and 140 series numbers is not permitted under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations.

Subscribers can allow or block promotional calls from registered telemarketers using 140 series numbers by registering their preferences on the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry, the regulator said.

The use of 1600 series numbers is designated for service and transactional calls by regulated entities in the financial sector, Trai said.


"A key objective of assigning designated series for these important communications is to make such calls trustworthy for the customers/citizens,"s it said in a release.

ET reported on July 6 that Trai had sought powers under the Information Technology (IT) Act to take action against call-management apps such as Truecaller, Hiya and Whoscall for tagging and blocking calls originating from these numbers. Currently, Trai does not have the authority to regulate such platforms.

Trai's clarification comes after caller-identification app Truecaller said on Wednesday that it was not allowed to mark such calls as spam despite evidence of misuse of the mandate.

Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala said spam calls from the 140 and 1600 number series have surged, with more than 51 million calls from the two series going unanswered every day.