Tired of pesky calls? Soon 160 prefix for calls from banks, brokers, insurers, NBFCs, other service providers

In order to crack down on pesky calls and SMSes, the department of telecom (DoT) has decided to allocate a separate number series — 160 — exclusively for service and transactional voice calls, as per Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), 2018, reported Business Line.

The phone calls coming from government and regulators should have the prefix of 1600 and financial entities which are regulated by RBI, SEBI, PFRDA and IRDAI should have a prefix of 1601, Department of Telecommunications said.

Apart from these principal entities (PEs), if any other entity requires assignment of number resources under this series, the same has to be requested separately by TRAI, a source, reported BusinessLine.

DoT stated, telecom service providers (TSPs) have to indicate the licensing service area as part of the series in the 10-digit number provided to PEs.

Different states

If a call is routed from Delhi, then the series should be 1600 (or 1601)11; if from Tamil Nadu then 1600 (or 1601)44; from Mumbai, the series would be 1600 (or 1601) 22.

The series will also be followed by the TSP (BSNL/ MTNL, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone-Idea and so on).

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“The TSP should ensure adequate verification of each and every entity before assigning a number from 160 series, and obtain an undertaking from the seeking entity (PE) that it will use the number assigned from the series exclusively for service and transactional voice calls, as per TCCCPR, 2018 notified under TRAI Act-1997 only,” a senior government official said, BL further reported.

The official explained that the service provider should make it clear to the PEs that it will be responsible for proper bonafide use of the assigned number 160 series.