DND – Do Not Disturb is an initiative by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to prevent users from receiving unsolicited Calls and Messages. These include informing or promoting any commercial transaction in relation to goods, investment or services. For example, getting calls or messages related to credit card offers, Trading, Loan etc. So if you do not want to receive any Commercial communications, register your number with your service provider either by making a voice call to 1909 or by sending an SMS to 1909. As its a toll-free number, there will not be any charges for making a call or sending SMS to 1909.
How to Activate DND Service
Fully Blocked – In this category, you will not get any commercial communications on your phone either by way of voice calls or SMS. To activate, send an SMS Start 0 to 1909. You can also do it by dialing 1909 using IVR system.
Partially Blocked – In this category, you will receive commercial SMS for the selected category and all other categories of SMS & calls will be blocked for your number. There are totally 7 categories to choose from.
- Banking/Insurance/Financial products/Credit cards
- Real Estate
- Education
- Health
- Consumer Goods and Automobiles
- Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT
- Tourism and Leisure
To activate Partially Blocked category, Send an SMS START <Space> one or multiple options from the above list of seven categories. For example: To stop receiving messages related to ‘Education’ then send SMS START 3 to 1909. Similarly, for stopping messages related to ‘Health’ and ‘Real Estate’, send an SMS START 4,2 to 1909. You will receive an SMS with a Unique Registration Number within 24 hours. Your DND service will be activated within 7 days of placing the request. You can also check the registration status by visiting the TRAI website. Open this link and enter your mobile number to check the DND status.
How to Deactivate the DND Service
If you would like to receive the commercial communications from all categories, you need to De-activate the DND service. To do so, send SMS, STOP 0 to 1909. Similarly, for the Partially Blocked category, send SMS, STOP <Space> one or multiple options from the above list of seven categories. For example, if you would like to receive SMS related to ‘Health’ and ‘Real Estate’, send an SMS, STOP 4,3 to 1909.
Note: DND service will not include any transactional messages and the messages transmitted on the directions of Central or State Government or agencies authorized by it. Means, you will receive few SMS irrespective of the DND status. These include SMS from the registered Banks, Financial institutions, Insurance companies or SMS’s by Airlines, BUS, and Indian Railways regarding travel schedules, ticket booking etc. The procedure is same for all service providers including BSNL, MTNL, Vodafone, Idea, Airtel, Docomo, Jio, and Aircel.
If you are still receiving commercial calls or SMS even after activating DND, you can register a complaint with your mobile service provider within 3 days of receiving the call or SMS. You can do it by Sending an SMS or using the TRAI’s official Android app. You can even register a complaint through TRAI’s customer support. Dial the toll-free number 1909 and register the complaint with the help of customer support executive or through IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System).
Registering complaints by SMS
For complaint through SMS, send an SMS “The unsolicited commercial communication, XXXXXXXXXX, dd/mm/yy” to 1909. Where XXXXXXXXXX is the telephone number of the SMS from which you received the commercial communication and dd/mm/yy is the date/month/year. Once you send the SMS, your service provider will take action on the complaint. You will receive the status of the complainant within 7 days of lodging the complaint. You can also check the status manually by visiting the TRAI website. Go this link and enter the complain number to know the complaint status.
Registering complaints using TRAI’s official app
TRAI has also released an official App named Do Not Disturb (DND 2.0) to register, deregister the DND service. You can use this app to lodge the complaint with your service provider and also to check the status of the complaints filed by you.
- Download and Install the DND app from Google Play store
- Open the app select the type you want to report – Call or SMS
- Select the Call or SMS you want to report (SMS is selected in the below screenshot)
- Tap on ‘Mark as Spam’
- Select the category of the SMS you have received and tap on ‘Complaint Through SMS’
- Once the complaint is raised, you will receive the SMS confirmation along with the Service Registration Number from your service provider
- To check the status of your complaint, go to this link and enter the Service Registration Number received by your service provider
Drop your queries in the comments and we will revert back as soon as possible. Do follow GizArena on Facebook and Twitter for latest tech updates.