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1601 Number Series Utility Calls: Telecom regulator TRAI has taken a big decision to stop cyber fraud using simple 10 digit mobile numbers. Now it has been made mandatory for electricity, water, LPG, city gas, courier and logistics companies to use the number series starting with ‘1601’ to make service or transaction calls to their customers.

What is special in 1601 number series?

Earlier ‘1600’ series was fixed only for banks, finance companies and government departments, but to maintain the safety of financial calls and to save customers from confusion, now ‘1601’ series has been created for other essential services. In the first phase, this series will be given to companies supplying electricity, water, LPG and city gas as well as logistics companies involved in courier, parcel delivery and freight transportation. TRAI has made it clear that these numbers will be used only to provide information to important work or service, no promotional calls of any kind can be made from them.

Rules for telecom companies

TRAI has ordered that ‘1601’ series numbers will be given directly to main companies only and these numbers will not be given to any third party. Telecom companies will have to allot these numbers only after complete investigation and written guarantee. Along with this, telecom operators have been instructed to complete the registration of all these essential service provider companies within 90 days and shift them to this new number series.

Truecaller controversy and strict rules of TRAI

Recently, there was a lot of controversy over caller ID apps like Truecaller showing ‘140’ and ‘1600’ series numbers as spam. On this, TRAI has now completely clarified that any kind of spam tag cannot be placed on ‘1600’ and ‘1601’ series numbers. These numbers are used by banks and other essential service providers to provide transaction confirmation, security alerts and other important information to customers.