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The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has enabled citizens to report suspected fraud communications through the Chakshu facility under its Sanchar Saathi initiative, the government informed Parliament on Thursday.
Based on citizen inputs, 39.43 lakh mobile connections have been disconnected, 2.27 lakh mobile handsets blacklisted, and 1.31 lakh SMS templates blocked to prevent misuse of telecom resources. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Communications and Rural Development Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said that the Sanchar Saathi initiative is accessible through a dedicated web portal and mobile application. The Chakshu facility allows citizens to report suspected fraud communications across multiple categories, including fake customer care calls, impersonation scams, phishing links, investment frauds, and online job or lottery offers. According to data shared by the Ministry, a total of 7.7 lakh suspected fraud communications have been reported by citizens since the launch of the facility. In 2025 alone, over 5.19 lakh reports were received, with major categories including KYC and payment-related frauds, impersonation of government agencies, and investment and trading scams. The Minister said that the Chakshu facility is meant for reporting suspected fraud attempts where no financial loss has occurred. Cases involving actual financial loss are handled by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The DoT uses crowdsourced data from Chakshu for analysis to identify misuse of telecom resources, and actions are taken after due re-verification of mobile users. Details of such actions are made available on the Sanchar Saathi dashboard. To further prevent misuse of telecom resources in cybercrime and financial frauds, the DoT has established the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), a secure online system for bi-directional information sharing among stakeholders. More than 1,200 organisations, including central security agencies, State and Union Territory police forces, banks, telecom service providers, UPI service providers, payment system operators, and WhatsApp, have been onboarded on the platform. Based on information shared through DIP, stakeholders have prevented financial frauds amounting to more than Rs 1,000 crore through transaction declines and alerts issued to citizens. The government also informed that WhatsApp has disengaged 28 lakh profiles/accounts associated with shared mobile numbers. (ANI)
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