All bulk telemarketing messages to be delivered till TRAI decision, says COAI

NEW DELHI:  Telecom industry body COAI on Wednesday said that telecom operators have started the process of scrubbing telemarketing messages. However, they will allow their transmission to mobile subscribers until regulator TRAI takes a final call.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had, on March 12, given three days’ time to entities such as banks, e-commerce firms, and others for complying with telemarketing rules, failing which they were to be barred from sending out commercial communication to customers. The business organisations, however, have sought more time from the telecom regulator to implement the process.

In the meantime, TRAI has allowed telecom operators to start the process of scrubbing and prepare a database of messages that do not comply with norms. “As per the revised directive from TRAI to resume the scrubbing, in case of failure of the messages due to any reasons including content ID, mismatch of template etc. same may be recorded.

However, the message may be allowed to be delivered to the recipient. Thus, no messages will be getting blocked,” COAI’s Director General Lt Gen (Retd) S P Kochhar said in a statement. Trai will conduct a review of the process every week and take a final call on the issue based on the progress. “Further, we reiterate that COAI members remain fully committed to address the issue of unsolicited commercial communications and will continue to abide by the Trai regulations,” Kochhar said.