New Delhi:Unsolicited commercial communications (UCC) complaints related to spam calls and SMS crossed 30 million in 2025, with telecom authorities blocking crores of messages daily and disconnecting over 21 lakh telecom connections, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
In a written reply, Union Minister for Communications and Development of North Eastern Region Jyotiraditya Scindia said telecom service providers (TSPs) received over 31.1 million complaints between January and December 2025, with a sharp rise during mid-year months.
Monthly data showed total complaints peaking at 3.94 lakh in August 2025 and remaining consistently above 2.5 lakh per month for most of the year. A majority of complaints were against unregistered telemarketers (UTMs) using regular 10-digit numbers to bypass consumer preference systems.
Scindia said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) regulates UCC under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) and has adopted a two-pronged strategy—facilitating legitimate commercial communications while cracking down on spam.
More than 3 lakh senders and 21,000 telemarketers have registered on the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform, while consumers can report spam through the TRAI DND app, 1909 helpline, TSP portals, or the Sanchar Saathi portal.
According to the minister, in December 2025 alone, an average of over 7.5 crore spam SMS and voice calls were blocked per day using the DLT system, based on customer preferences.
To curb misuse, TRAI has mandated 140-series numbers for promotional calls, registered headers for commercial SMS, and AI-based spam detection systems by major TSPs. Directions issued in August 2024 and strengthened amendments in February 2025 empowered TSPs to suspend or disconnect all telecom resources of violators across networks.
“Subsequently, around 21 lakh telecom connections have been disconnected,” Scindia said.
TRAI has also introduced the 1600 series for financial sector service and transactional calls and imposed financial disincentives of ₹153.8 crore on TSPs for violations related to delayed or improper handling of UCC complaints.
