The Government is working on a provision to resolve issues around telecom regulator Trai’s power to penalise telecom operators for flouting rules on pesky calls and SMSes, an official source said.
According to official data, grievances against pesky calls and messages have been rising year-on-year since 2022, with more than 82 per cent of complaints being filed against unregistered telemarketers.
“There is some issue with the capability of Trai to impose financial penalties on telecom operators to comply with its norms. The Telecom ministry is trying to resolve it and give that power (to Trai),” an official source said.
When Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) finds a telecom operator has violated rules with penal provisions, it sends a recommendation to the Department of Telecom for deducting the financial disincentive.
According to sources, the DoT has not executed penal orders received from the regulator due to legal-technical issues and also the reduction of bank guarantees post the telecom reforms of 2021.
Telecom operators have challenged Trai’s penal order before the Telecommunications Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and obtained a stay order in the matter.
On the other hand, spam calls and SMSes have soared due to logjams at various levels.
According to official data, consumers have filed over 20.75 lakh complaints against pesky callers in the first half of this year, which is 66 per cent of the total 31.09 lakh complaints filed in 2025.
Over 12.84 lakh complaints against pesky callers were filed in 2021.
In 2022, the number of complaints declined to 10.83 lakh.
The complaints increased by about 26 per cent to 13.62 lakh in 2023, then by 42 per cent to 19.38 lakh in 2024 and by 60 per cent to 31.09 lakh in 2025.
While there has been a rise in the number of complaints against pesky callers, the action on disconnection of telecom resources misused for making such communications has not seen a similar trend.
According to data shared by the minister, 19.21 lakh telecom connections of pesky callers were disconnected between August and December 2024. The number of telecom resource disconnections fell to 1.94 lakh in 2025, and the first half of 2026 has seen a disconnection of 79,000 telecom resources.
However, action on entities involved in sponsoring pesky calls and messages has seen a continuous rise.
The data showed that 155 registered principal entities, on whose behalf pesky calls or SMSes were carried out, were blacklisted in August-December 2024, 995 in 2025, and the first half of 2026 has recorded the blacklisting of 1,406 entities.
According to the data, 41 registered telemarketers were blacklisted between August and December 2024, 12 in 2025 and seven till June this year.