In an effort to combat telecom fraud, the government on Friday said it has disconnected more than 3.4 crore mobile phones while blocking 3.19 lakh IMEI numbers to date through the Sanchar Saathi portal.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said that with the help of AI and Big Data, it also disengaged 16.97 lakh WhatsApp accounts.
Over 20,000 bulk SMS senders were also blacklisted as part of DoT’s ‘Sanchar Saathi’ initiative, said Dr. Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar, Minister of State for Communications and Rural Development, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
Through the Sanchar Saathi portal, the government facilitates citizens to report suspected fraud communications on the Chakshu facility.
DoT then carries out several analyses and takes action against telecom resources found to be linked to misuse, said the minister.
Rather than acting on individually reported suspected fraud communications, DoT uses crowdsourced data to carry out analyses and zero in on the misuse of telecom resources.
The Department uses AI-based tools and big data analysis to identify suspected mobile connections obtained using fake documents.
Furthermore, DoT and telecom service providers (TSPs) have devised a system for near real-time identification and blocking of incoming international spoofed calls that display Indian mobile numbers and appear to originate from India, said the minister.
Meanwhile, telecom service providers have blacklisted 1,150 entities/individuals and disconnected more than 18.8 lakh resources.
The actions led to a significant reduction in the complaints against unregistered telemarketers (UTMs) — from 1,89,419 in August 2024 to 1,34,821 in January 2025.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) amended the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2018 on February 12.
A customer can now file a complaint about spam or unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) within seven days of receiving it, compared to the previous three-day time limit.
The time limit for taking action by the access providers against the UCC from unregistered senders has been reduced from 30 days to 5 days, according to the amendments.
(Inputs from IANS)