New Delhi, Mar 18: Taking a tough stand against the menace of unwanted calls on phones, Telecom Regulatory body TRAI on Monday said it will impose a fine of up to Rs 20,000 on service providers for non-compliance of its directive regarding unsolicited tele-marketing calls and messages.

TRAI has amended the Telecom Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC) (Amendment) Regulations, 2008, under which if any telecom service provider does not comply with provisions of the Regulations he would be fined up to Rs 5,000 for the first instance and not more than Rs 20,000 for every subsequent instance, Trai said in a statement.

It will also levi a tariff of Rs 500 on the registered telemarketer for the first unsolicited call and Rs 1,000 for the second or any subsequent unsolicited call.

To discourage the registered telemarketers from sending Unsolicited Commercial Communications, the Telecommunication Tariff Order, 1999 is also being amended simultaneously by the TTO (Forty- seventh Amendment). So that Rs 500 would be payable as tariff for every first unsolicited commercial communication and Rs 1000 for every subsequent unsolicited commercial communication, it said.

"The objective is to increase the effectiveness of compliance of these regulations by providing financial disincentive to non-compliant Telecom Service Providers and thereby reducing the nuisance and inconvenience to the subscribers from the unsolicited tele-marketing calls/ messages," it added.

This regulation would come into force from the date of its publication in the gazette notification, TRAI said.