TRAI Marketing Calls
The Department of Telecommunications has made preparations to curb online fraud. TRAI, the telecom regulator, has approved a new number series for regulated entities such as banking, insurance, etc. Users will now receive banking or insurance calls from numbers starting with 160. This step of the Department of Telecommunications will protect people from fraudulent calls from fake numbers. Recently, the Department of Telecommunications had announced a new number series for financial institutions and organizations, which has now been approved by TRAI.
DoT (Department of Telecommunications) said that this new 10-digit number series has been designed in such a way that telecom users will be able to know the calling agency as well as the telecom operator and the location of the call. This is very important to prevent financial fraud.
DoT said in its order that under the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR, 2018), it has been decided to allocate a separate number series, starting with 160, exclusively for service and transactional phone calls.
Identifying the correct call will be easy
This new number series will be issued for the government and financial regulators as 1600ABCXXX, in which AB will be the code of the telecom circle. For example, 11 for Delhi, 22 for Mumbai, 33 for Kolkata and 44 for Chennai. At the same time, C will be replaced by the code of the telecom service provider and XXX will be replaced by a number between 000 to 999.
At the same time, a new 10-digit number will be issued as 1601ABCXXX for financial institutions regulated by government institutions like RBI, SEBI, EPFO, PFRDA, IRDA etc. DoT will completely verify each entity before allocating this number to any financial institution. Apart from this, to get this number, an affidavit will have to be taken from the concerned unit of the institutions that they will use the number allotted under this series only for service and transaction calls.