The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has finally clarified how third-party apps, including Truecaller, should handle calls originating from the 1600 and 140 number series. This comes after reports suggested TRAI is seeking approval from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to regulate call management apps as part of its anti-spam and anti-fraud efforts.
In the press release, TRAI stated that certain reports had led to “misinformation or misinterpretation” regarding the purpose of the dedicated number series introduced under its commercial communication regulations.
As per TRAI, the 1600 series is reserved for service and transactional calls made by regulated entities such as banks, insurance companies and financial institutions overseen by RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA. The government departments can also use these numbers for official communication with citizens.
The regulator stated that the series was introduced to help consumers identify genuine service calls. Under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), telecom operators and third-party apps are not allowed to tag, block or filter calls made through the 1600 series.
The 140 series, meanwhile, is meant for promotional calls. Businesses using these numbers must register with telecom operators and comply with TRAI’s commercial communication rules. Consumers can manage such calls through the Do Not Disturb (DND) framework, but TRAI said apps should not independently classify or filter these calls.
This comes after criticism from Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala, who opposed the proposed restrictions. He claimed spam originating from the 140 and 1600 series has increased significantly, with more than 51 million such calls going unanswered every day.
According to Jhunjhunwala, Truecaller users ignored 81 per cent of 140-series calls and 79 per cent of 1600-series calls over the past eight months. He added that users manually block around four lakh 140-series calls and 1.25 lakh 1600-series calls daily.
Truecaller said it does not label 1600-series calls as spam but only displays a “Frequently Blocked” badge for numbers that users commonly block, arguing that restricting such information would reduce transparency for consumers.