The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a statement on Friday that there is no app that can block phone calls originating from the 1600 series of numbers allocated for communications by regulatory entities and the government to citizens. The authority also clarified that promotional calls originating from 140 number series cannot be flagged or filtered by an app, and can only be blocked through a DND registry managed by the regulatory body itself.
“Under the Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), no flagging, blocking or filtering of calls originating from 1600 series numbers is permitted,” Trai said.
The regulatory body said that the main goal of allocating the 1600 series for important communications is to make such calls worthy of citizens’ trust. For calls starting with the 140 number series, TRAI said it is intended for use by registered telemarketers.
140 can be blocked, but…
“Customers have the right to allow or block promotional calls originating from 140 series numbers from entities in any or all sectors by registering their preferences in the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry,” it said.
The regulator said that a customer who has blocked any or all sectors from receiving promotional calls on a DND record will not receive any 140 series calls originating from the blocked sector entities.
“A customer can register his DND preference through multiple means including through the TRAI DND app. No flagging or filtering of calls from 140 series numbers is permitted except blocking on the DND registry, as any flagging could mislead a customer who otherwise allowed such calls to be received from a segment in the DND registry,” he added.
The clarification provided by the regulator indicates that customers will not be able to flag calls from numbers starting with 1600 and the number series 140 as spam, fraud or any other type of call.
What the leading caller ID app says
Truecaller CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala said there has been a significant increase in spam calls through the 140 and 1600 number series, with more than 5.1 crore calls from both the series going unanswered every day, news agency PTI reported.
“Specifically with the 1600 series, which is for service/transaction related calls, we have seen daily blocking actions three times (by 208 per cent) since October 2025. A total of Rs 7.4 lakh (74 million) manual blocking actions have been taken against this chain in the last eight months,” Jhunjhunwala said in a social media post.
Currently, Truecaller users are blocking 4 lakh 140 series calls and 1.25 lakh 1600 series calls every day, he said.
