A major conflict has arisen between India’s telecom regulator, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), and Truecaller regarding a significant regulation. TRAI has explicitly stated that no app is permitted to arbitrarily categorize calls originating from banks, financial institutions, and government departments—specifically those in the ‘1600’ and ‘140’ series—as spam or block them. Furthermore, TRAI is now seeking legal authority from the government to rein in such call management apps.
What are the ‘1600’ and ‘140’ series numbers?
TRAI explained that the ‘1600’ number series is reserved specifically for calls related to essential services and transactions. Only banks and insurance companies regulated by bodies such as the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, and PFRDA are authorized to use this series to contact their existing customers. Government departments also utilize this series to communicate with citizens. In contrast, the ‘140’ number series is used by companies for promotional or advertising calls.
Why is TRAI upset with companies like Truecaller?
TRAI maintains that the very purpose of introducing these specific series was to enable people to distinguish between genuine and fraudulent calls and to foster trust. Under the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), neither telecom operators nor third-party apps are permitted to tag ‘1600’ series numbers as spam or filter them out. If a user does not wish to receive promotional calls, they can utilize the ‘Do Not Disturb’ (DND) system themselves; apps should not interfere in this process.
Truecaller CEO speaks out
Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala has strongly opposed TRAI’s draft regulations regarding this issue. He argued that preventing apps from blocking such calls would compromise user safety and transparency. According to Jhunjhunwala, there has been a massive surge in spam calls originating from the ‘140’ and ‘1600’ series in recent times. Every day, over 51 million (5.1 crore) such calls are made from these two series—calls that people do not even answer. Data from Truecaller indicates that over the past eight months, users have ignored 81% of calls from the ‘140’ series and 79% from the ‘1600’ series, as they have lost trust in these numbers. Users are manually blocking 400,000 calls from the ‘140’ series and 125,000 calls from the ‘1600’ series on a daily basis.
Defending his company, the Truecaller CEO stated that they do not label these numbers as ‘spam’ directly; instead, they simply assign a ‘Frequently Blocked’ badge to them. He argued that the government should take action against those who are misusing the rules, rather than imposing censorship on helpful apps like Truecaller.
