New mobile number series introduced by the Centre for service and transactional voice calls

The Centre has reportedly introduced a new numbering series, 160xxxxxxx, for making service or transactional calls, further helping Indian citizens to easily identify legitimate calls and curb unsolicited voice calls from telemarketers who are currently using 10-digit mobile numbers. To address this, the DoT has allocated a new numbering series, 160xxxxxxx which will exclusively be used for service/transactional voice calls by the principal entities. "For example, the service/transactional calls originating from Financial Entities like by RBI, SEBI, PFRDA, IRDA, etc shall start from 1601," DoT stated. The Department said that telecom Service Providers will need to ensure "adequate verification of every entity before assigning a number from 160 series and the entity shall undertake to use it only for service/transactional calls".