NEW DELHI: Fifteen telemarketers have been blacklisted while another 245 have been issued notices by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for unwanted calls and text messages.

The regulator has also deducted Rs 1.36 crore security deposit for violations of various norms. TRAI, which had implemented Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations from 27 September 2011, had laid down that telemarketers have to deposit some amount to their service provider as security deposit.

The 15 telemarketers have been blacklisted from 27 September 2011 till 25 June this year, and the deduction of security deposit is for violations from 27 September 2011 to 30 July 2013.

There is a provision of deduction from Rs 25,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh in case of violation by telemarketers under the regulations. Telemarketers are required to register with TRAI in order to send commercial communications to telecom consumers.

Subscribers who have registered with the National Customer Preference Registry, earlier known as ‘Do Not Call Registry‘ are not supposed to receive commercial communications.

A different set of numbers starting with ‘70‘ were issued to telemarketers to help unregistered subscribers identify commercial calls and decide whether to accept or reject them. But TRAI has come across instances when the commercial communication was not sent by the registered telemarketers.