New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) Pesky calls from telemarketers will continue to nag customers for some more time as the telecom regulator has extended to March 21 the deadline to curb them citing technical reasons, an official said Monday.
The delay has been caused as the allocated series has been changed from ’70’ to ‘140’ for telemarketers and it will take some time to implement the change, he said.
Last year, the telecom watchdog announced a set of new measures to curb unsolicited commercial calls and messages, which were to be implemented from Jan 1. This was extended to March 1 and now to March 21.
The regulations include a fine ranging from Rs.25,000 to Rs.250,000 for the defaulting companies and allocation of a number starting with ’70’ to the telemarketers making it easy for the customers to recognise their numbers.
Unlike the previous regulation that asked customers to register their numbers in ‘do not call’ list, users can now choose from different categories like ‘fully blocked’ or ‘partially blocked’, under which a customer can receive communication for categories of his choice.
