Telecom Department Takes Action Against Fraud: The central government has announced that over 3.4 crore mobile connections have been disconnected, and 3.19 lakh IMEI numbers have been blocked to combat telecom fraud.
Additionally, 16.97 lakh WhatsApp accounts have been blocked with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, according to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
In a statement in the Rajya Sabha, Dr. Pemmasani Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Communications and Rural Development, mentioned that over 20,000 bulk SMS senders have also been blacklisted under the DoT’s ‘Sanchar Sathi initiative.’
The Sanchar Sathi portal enables citizens to report suspected fraudulent communications with the assistance of the ‘Chakshu’ tool.
Which Numbers Are Blocked?
Dr. Chandrashekhar explained that the DoT investigates complaints related to suspected fraud, blocking numbers found to be fraudulent.
Rather than acting on individual reports of suspicious communications, the department uses crowd-sourced data for investigations to prevent misuse of telecom resources.
AI Identifies Fake Numbers
AI-based tools and big data analysis are used to identify mobile connections that are obtained using fake documents.
Additionally, a new system has been developed by the DoT and Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to detect international spoof calls—calls that appear to be from India but actually originate abroad.
This system allows real-time identification and blocking of these fraudulent calls.
Telecom Providers Take Action
Telecom service providers have blacklisted 1,150 entities/individuals and disconnected over 18.8 lakh resources.
These actions have resulted in a reduction of complaints against unregistered telemarketers (UTMs), which decreased from 1,89,419 in August 2024 to 1,34,821 in January 2025.
New Regulations for Spam Calls
On February 12, 2025, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) amended the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2018. Under the new rules:
Customers can now lodge complaints about spam or unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) within seven days of receiving it, up from the previous limit of three days.
The time for access providers to take action against unregistered UCC senders has been reduced from 30 days to just 5 days.
Stricter criteria for taking action against UCC senders have been introduced to ensure quicker responses.
