TCCCPR 2018

The regulations set who may send commercial voice calls and SMS, from which numbers, to whom, and what happens when the rules are broken. TRAI notified them on 19 July 2018 (PDF), opens in a new tab, repealing the 2010 regulations, and as of September 2026 has amended them three times.

How it works

The regulations define a commercial communication as a call or message whose primary purpose is to inform about, advertise or solicit business for goods, services or an investment opportunity. The system built around that definition has four parts:

• Customers set preferences. A subscriber can block promotional communication in full or by category, real estate among them, and the operator records it in the preference register. This is what people call DND and the NCPR.
• Senders register. Businesses, their headers and templates, and the telemarketers who call for them register with operators on distributed ledger platforms, known as DLT.
• Lists are checked. Before delivery, the target numbers are compared with preferences and recorded consent, a step the regulations call scrubbing.
• Complaints lead to action. A sender who is not registered is treated as sending unsolicited commercial communication (UCC), and complaints can end in suspension or disconnection.

The amendments

The Second Amendment of 12 February 2025 (PDF), opens in a new tab restricted ordinary 10-digit numbers for telemarketing, kept promotional calls on the 140 series and designated the 1600 series for transactional and service calls (TRAI press release, 2025 (PDF), opens in a new tab). It gave customers seven days to complain, triggered action at five complaints against a sender in ten days, and provided that repeat violators lose all telecom resources, including PRI and SIP trunks, across operators for a year.

The Third Amendment, notified on 18 September 2026 (PDF), opens in a new tab, takes effect in stages 30, 60 and 90 days after its publication in the Gazette, so as of September 2026 it is not yet in force. It defines application-to-person (A2P) calls, including calls using artificial voice, and requires senders to declare A2P calling and their caller ID ranges to their operator in advance. It limits the “relationship” created by an enquiry to seven days, merges the “fully block” preference into “block promo”, and its explanatory memorandum records a 1601 series for service and transactional calls from sectors other than banking, finance and government.

Why it matters for voice agents

An AI agent calling leads about a property is making commercial communication, whoever wrote the software. Good software can behave correctly on the call, for example by naming the business and honouring an opt-out at once. The registrations cannot be delegated to it: registering as a principal entity on DLT, using a registered telemarketer, calling from the 140 series and scrubbing the list against the NCPR are the calling business’s own obligations.

Example

Say a developer wants to call everyone who downloaded the brochure for a new Pune tower. Under TCCCPR, those calls go out from a 140-series number allotted through a registered telemarketer linked to the developer on DLT. Numbers that have blocked real estate promotions are removed first, unless the developer holds consent recorded under the regulations.

Common confusions

• TCCCPR vs the DPDP Act. TCCCPR governs the call and SMS channel; the DPDP Act governs personal data. The Third Amendment states that nothing in TCCCPR exempts a sender from its obligations under the DPDP Act.
• TCCCPR vs DND. DND is one part of TCCCPR, the customer’s side. The regulation also binds senders, telemarketers and operators.
• “TCCCPR-compliant software”. Most obligations fall on the sender and the telemarketer. No tool holds the registrations for them.

This entry summarises the regulations as of September 2026 and is not legal advice.