The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has suggested the government to raise the fine for ‘unauthorised interception of communication’ to Rs. 2 crore from Rs. 1 lakh. It has also suggested a penalty of Rs. 20,000 for every unsolicited commercial call made by telemarketers. These suggestions were made by the DoT an input on the Draft Rights to Privacy Bill, 2012.
The DoT has further recommended allowing the interception of phone calls as it would help determine whether a call made to a subscriber was unsolicited or not. As per the TRAI regulations for unsolicited calls and messages, a fine of Rs. 25,000 will be deducted from the deposit of registered telemarketers on the first breach. The fine could be raised step by step till the maximum sixth violation, for which penalty is Rs. 2.5 lakh.
The telecom regulatory body last week revealed it had amended the rule, and now any subscriber found guilty of using telecom service for unsolicited commercial communications would face immediate disconnection and would be blacklisted for two years.
The TRAI in its Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Twelfth Amendment) Regulations, 2013, announced various measures to tighten the framework for controlling the menace of Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC).
It also introduced two new regulations – The Short Message Services (SMS) Termination Charges Regulations, 2013′ and ‘Amendment to the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2010′. While the first regulation prescribes cost based SMS Termination Charge as 2 paise per SMS, while the second prescribes transactional SMS charge of 5 paise per transactional SMS. These regulations will come into effect on June 1, 2013.