The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India convened the Joint Committee of Regulators in New Delhi to ramp up cross-sectoral action against telecom-based spam, fraud and infrastructure misuse. The meeting brought together key regulatory bodies including the Reserve Bank of India, Securities and Exchange Board of India, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and the Department of Telecommunications, alongside representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs and National Payments Corporation of India.
A central focus of the session was migration to the dedicated 1600-series number block for commercial calls in the banking, financial services and insurance sectors. Regulators agreed to adopt a phased implementation strategy tailored to the operational scale of individual entities, with timelines to be proposed by sectoral regulators for submission to TRAI.
TRAI and RBI also launched a pilot initiative on Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) aimed at replacing offline and unverifiable opt-ins with a secure, unified digital framework. Under the new system, consumers will be able to digitally register, review and revoke commercial communication consents via a tamper-proof interface. The pilot is being conducted with eight telecom service providers and seven major banks: State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Canara Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Four working groups have been tasked with overseeing technical specifications, operational protocols and public awareness efforts.
In preparation for the DCA pilot, TRAI and RBI jointly hosted a full-day workshop on July 21, with participation from all stakeholder banks and telecom providers. Discussion topics included consent architecture, data security, and consumer access models. Consensus was reached on sustained collaboration for long-term deployment.
The committee endorsed a proposal for automated data exchange among the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, the Department of Telecommunications’ Digital Intelligence Platform, and Distributed Ledger Technology systems maintained by telecom access providers. The data sharing mechanism is expected to expedite disconnection and blacklisting of telecom resources linked to fraud.
Concerns were raised over the misuse of enterprise telecom infrastructure, particularly SIP and PRI lines deployed for bulk commercial calls. Regulators deliberated on introducing designated number ranges and additional safeguards to ensure accountability.
TRAI also relaunched its SMS header transparency portal (smsheader.trai.gov.in), enabling consumers to identify entities using specific message headers and track commercial communication provenance.
With financial fraud increasingly tied to mobile networks and UPI systems, NPCI has joined the Joint Committee as a strategic stakeholder, bringing transaction intelligence into the regulatory fold.
TRAI Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti emphasized the importance of inter-agency cooperation in building a consumer-safe digital ecosystem. He acknowledged the DoT’s recent rollout of the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator, which flags numbers linked to financial scams, and called for swift adoption of preventive measures across domains. He reiterated that such safeguards must protect users without obstructing legitimate enterprise communications and urged all regulators to expedite implementation within their respective jurisdictions.
