27% mobile subscribers claims reduction in pesky calls says survey

New Delhi: About 27% mobile subscribers surveyed reported a reduction in pesky calls post TRAI blacklisting 50 calling entities and 2.75 lakh numbers says a survey by LocalCircles.

However, 18% of these mobile subscribers say robo calls have increased instead indicating net improvement only being experienced by 9% subscribers, says the survey.

During survey when asked mobile subscribers, “Have the number of pesky calls reduced for you in the last 30 days?” Out of 14,941 consumers who responded to the question 43% stated “No, they have not reduced” and 21% stated

“no, they have in fact increased even more recently with both calls from humans and robos/ machines”. Of the remaining, 9% stated “yes, they have reduced”; 18% stated “yes, they have reduced but automated/ robo calls have increased” and 9% of respondents did not give a clear answer, said a statement from LocalCircles.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on November 20, TRAI stated that consumer spam complaints have dropped by 20% from 1.89 lakh in August 2024 to 1.51 lakh in October 2024, after it issued direction to curb spam calls.

Apart from the directives, TRAI disconnected around 2.75 lakh telephone numbers and blocked services to 50 entities as part of a crackdown against pesky callers and unregistered telemarketers.

To understand the ground reality, LocalCircles, community social media platform, conducted survey said the statement.

The survey received over 14,000 responses from mobile subscribers located in 309 districts of India. 62% were men while 38% respondents were women. 40% respondents were from tier 1, 27% from tier 2 and 33% respondents were from tier 3, 4 & rural districts.

The TRAI need to be vigilant to ensure that these human pesky calls don’t all get re-routed as robo calls as the currently reported trend indicates, the statement from LocalCircles said.