The government is working on provisions to resolve legal and technical hurdles affecting TRAI’s ability to penalise telecom operators for violations related to spam calls and messages. More than 20.75 lakh complaints against pesky callers were registered in the first half of 2026 alone.
New Delhi, November 6 — The government is working on measures to strengthen the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) ability to impose financial penalties on telecom operators that fail to comply with rules designed to curb spam calls and SMSes.
An official source said there are currently issues regarding TRAI’s ability to directly impose financial penalties on telecom companies, and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is working to resolve them.
At present, when TRAI finds that a telecom operator has violated rules containing penal provisions, it sends a recommendation to the DoT for deduction of the applicable financial disincentive.
However, according to the source, the DoT has not executed some penal orders received from the regulator because of legal and technical issues, as well as changes related to bank guarantees following the telecom reforms of 2021.
Telecom operators have also challenged TRAI’s penal order before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and secured a stay.
Spam complaints surge
The regulatory issue comes as complaints against unwanted commercial calls and messages continue to increase sharply.
Consumers registered more than 20.75 lakh complaints against pesky callers in the first half of 2026. This is already around 66% of the 31.09 lakh complaints registered during the whole of 2025.
More than 82% of complaints are against unregistered telemarketers, according to official data cited in the source.
Complaints had stood at 12.84 lakh in 2021, before declining to 10.83 lakh in 2022.
They subsequently increased to 13.62 lakh in 2023, 19.38 lakh in 2024 and 31.09 lakh in 2025.
Disconnections fall despite rising complaints
Interestingly, the number of telecom connections disconnected for misuse has not risen at the same pace.
Around 19.21 lakh telecom connections used for pesky communications were disconnected between August and December 2024.
That figure dropped to 1.94 lakh in 2025, while only around 79,000 telecom resources were disconnected during the first half of 2026.
Action against entities sponsoring spam communications, however, has increased.
The number of registered principal entities blacklisted rose from 155 during August-December 2024 to 995 in 2025 and 1,406 in the first half of 2026.
The government’s proposed intervention could therefore strengthen enforcement against telecom operators and other entities failing to comply with anti-spam regulations as unwanted calls and messages continue to rise.
