The Indian government has been waging war on illegal routing of global calls for what seems like forever and in spite of the steep punishments which threaten law breakers, there are some who will always be tempted to play the game. Telecom Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, says that such shady activities have led to Rs 4 crores in losses to the government.
Prasad has informed the Lok Sabha, or the lower house of the Parliament of India, about serious security concerns with regards to the issue. Call routing can disguise an international call as a local one and such a connection cannot be monitored by the government. In 2008, the Department of Telecommunications set up a call center usable by the public in order to report this nefarious activity.
Over the years, many parties have been fined or imprisoned for routing calls. Offenders manage to trick the system by employing certain equipment to convert global calls to data and then to local voice calls, notes a post on The Indian Express. It is not possible to find such calls registered in records and when a security need arises, this can offer cause for furrowed eyebrows.
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In 2014 itself, 9 cases of call routing were uncovered and these meant the exchequer’s coffers suffered a loss of Rs 1.86 crores. Just one similar incident was detected in 2012 although it did have an impact amounting to Rs 17.2 lakhs less for the government. As for 2011, we saw 4 such cases of illegal global call routing and a loss of Rs 2.42 crores being unearthed.