New 160 number series to reduce spam calls

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said the new 160 number series will reduce spam and ensure customers do not miss out on important service and transactional calls.

In a meeting with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), and more than 25 banks and other financial institutions, TRAI discussed the burgeoning problem of spam and ways to tackle it, officials said.

So far, numbers in the 140 series have been allocated for all commercial purposes. These could be classified further into (140) marketing and (160 or 161) for service calls to easily identify the purpose of the call in the future.