New Delhi: The government is working on a provision to resolve issues around the power of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to penalise telecom operators for flouting rules on pesky calls and SMSes. The move of the government comes after receiving grievances against pesky calls and messages from several users across the country, the sources said on Friday.
As per the government data, 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),” the source said.
When the telecom watchdog finds a telecom operator has violated rules with penal provisions, it sends a recommendation to the department of telecom (DoT) for deducting the financial disincentive. “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,” the source said.
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 data showed, adding that 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. As per the 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,” the minister had said.
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