New Delhi; Leading News Service: The central government has prepared guidelines to save the mobile users from fake calls and messages. Public comments have been invited on it till July 21. A bill in this regard will be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament incorporating these reactions and feedback.
Even before the Lok Sabha elections, the central government had constituted a committee. The committee has drafted guidelines to curb fake calls and messages. That draft has now been sent out for public feedback. The government's aim is to protect the privacy rights of consumers.
To draft the bill, apart from the Department of Telecom and the Department of Telecom Regulatory Authority, the committee includes the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Cellular Operations Association of India, Department of Financial Services. It also includes representatives of Reserve Bank, Insurance Regulator.
The bill, designed to ban fake calls and messages, includes safeguarding people's privacy in incoming promotional and commercial calls. Most of the calls come from the financial services sector, followed by real estate. There are many telecom marketing companies in the Indian market, which go against the rules and harass the customers. The government is considering banning the calls altogether and levying fines from TRAI.
A series of new 160 numbers
Earlier, TRAI and DoT have released new 160 number series for banking and registered financial institutions to curb fake calls, so that people do not face any problem in identifying genuine and fake calls, DoT is testing Caller ID Name Representation in two telecom circles.
