TRAI defends 140, 1600 call rules amid spam row with Truecaller

MUMBAI: The battle over who’s calling whom has dialled up another notch. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has defended its rules governing the 140 and 1600 number series, insisting that calls from these designated ranges cannot be tagged, filtered or blocked, except where consumers have chosen to block promotional calls through the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry.

The clarification, issued on Thursday, comes a day after Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala criticised the regulator, arguing that restrictions preventing caller identification apps from displaying community-generated information for these numbers have fuelled spam and reduced consumer trust.

TRAI said certain media reports had the potential to create misinformation about how the designated numbering system operates and reiterated that the framework was introduced to make legitimate business communication easier for consumers to identify.

The regulator said the 1600xx series is reserved exclusively for service and transactional calls made by regulated entities, including organisations supervised by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA). Government departments can also use the series for official government-to-citizen communication.

Under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), TRAI said calls originating from the 1600 series cannot be tagged, filtered or blocked by third-party platforms, as the objective is to ensure consumers recognise these calls as trusted communications.

The regulator also reaffirmed that the 140 series remains dedicated to promotional calls made by registered telemarketers. Businesses using the series must register with telecom operators and comply with the TCCCPR framework.

However, consumers still retain control over promotional communication. TRAI said users who have opted to block promotional calls from specific sectors through the DND registry will not receive 140-series calls from those categories. Customers can also modify their preferences through multiple channels, including the TRAI DND app.

While DND-based blocking of promotional calls is permitted, TRAI stressed that tagging or filtering 140-series calls is not allowed because it could mislead consumers who have deliberately chosen to receive promotional communications.

The clarification follows an increasingly public disagreement between TRAI and Truecaller over how spam calls should be identified. On Wednesday, Jhunjhunwala argued that restrictions on caller identification apps have made it harder for users to distinguish between legitimate and unwanted calls.

According to the Truecaller chief, more than 51 million calls from the 140 and 1600 series go unanswered every day. He claimed that over the past eight months, users ignored 81 per cent of 140-series calls and 79 per cent of 1600-series calls, while alleging that some businesses had begun using 1600 numbers for promotional purposes.

The 1600 numbering series was introduced by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in May 2025 for banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) service and transactional calls to help consumers distinguish genuine communications from fraud. The 140 series was similarly designated for promotional calls by registered telemarketers.

At the heart of the dispute is a broader policy question: whether trusted numbering systems should take precedence over community-generated spam alerts. While TRAI maintains that unrestricted tagging could undermine confidence in official communication channels, Truecaller argues that limiting user-driven information leaves consumers with fewer tools to identify potentially unwanted calls.