The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had earlier sought more authority to regulate caller ID services such as Truecaller. The government agency had also previously mandated that promotional and banking calls should use 140 and 160 series numbers, respectively, while instructing caller ID apps like Truecaller to whitelist these numbers from spam warnings. Responding to the mandate on Wednesday, Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala said that the restriction preventing caller ID apps from displaying community-based spam alerts for numbers in the 140 and 160 series has affected user trust. He further added that millions of calls from these number series go unanswered every day as users continue to report unwanted calls. The company has also criticised reports suggesting that TRAI is seeking regulatory control over caller identification applications in India.
Truecaller said that it followed TRAI’s directions to whitelist the 140 and 1600 series numbers, even though the company had concerns about whether the regulator could issue such instructions to apps. According to the company, the move has not delivered the expected results and has instead created new challenges for users.
Jhunjhunwala shared on X that more than 51 million calls from these number series go unanswered every day. He further claimed that Truecaller was not allowed to inform users if these calls were being reported as spam by the community.
Wondering why spam calls have increased SIGNIFICANTLY in India recently? Well, it's actually going to get worse, here’s why:
— Rishit Jhunjhunwala (@rishj) July 8, 2026
In late 2025, TRAI enforced businesses to call consumers using 140 (for telemarketing calls) and 1600 (for BFSI companies to make service/transaction… pic.twitter.com/Gy5ykiBxrL
The company said that people have gradually stopped trusting calls from these numbers. According to Truecaller’s data, users ignored 81 per cent of 140 series calls and 79 per cent of 1600 series calls in the last eight months. It also claimed that manual blocking of 1600 series numbers has increased by 208 per cent since October 2025.
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Truecaller also introduced a new ‘Frequently Blocked’ badge for numbers that have been blocked by a large number of users just to address user concerns. The company said that this feature complies with the government’s mandate, as it does not mark the numbers as spam but only shares community-based information.
Jhunjhunwala said the feature was introduced after users started blocking a large number of calls from the dedicated series. Truecaller claims that users have manually blocked around 74 million calls from these numbers.
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TRAI introduced the dedicated number series under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference regulations to control unwanted calls. The 140 series is used for promotional calls, while the 1600 series is meant for banking and financial communication.
Truecaller said it plans to share its data with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to explain how limiting community alerts could impact users. The company has also urged authorities to focus on action against misuse of the system rather than regulating caller ID platforms.