New Delhi

Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday outlined a multi-pronged technology-driven strategy to combat international spoof calls and rising cyber frauds, highlighting key government initiatives that have drastically reduced fraudulent communications and financial scams.

Highlighting progress made through the Sanchar Saathi initiative, Scindia noted that since its launch on May 16, 2023, the portal has recorded over 15.5 crore hits. A mobile app version launched on January 17, 2025, has already clocked 44 lakh hits.

Sanchar Saathi, a citizen-centric digital safety platform, integrates advanced tools such as the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) for blocking lost or stolen phones, the Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP), AI-powered systems like ASTR (Artificial Intelligence and Facial Recognition Technology) for identifying fake connections, and the Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) to detect and prevent financial fraud.

Scindia said, "We launched the 'Sanchar Saathi' portal on May 16, 2023, and I am happy to share that the portal has received more than 15.5 crore hits. Building on the success of that portal, we launched a mobile app on January 17, 2025, which has already received 44 lakh hits. Sanchaar Sathi has disconnected 29 lakh phone numbers and blocked 5.5 lakh handsets and 20,000 bulk SMS senders alongside 24 lakh fraudulent WhatsApp accounts. 1.36 crore falsely duplicated mobile connections have also been disconnected."

Replying to a question about combating cybercrime, Scindia said a major breakthrough in tackling telecom-related cybercrime has been the creation of a Digital Intelligence Platform (DIP).

He said, "The first step is that we have created a 'Digital Intelligence Platform' (DIP), because unless all stakeholders are brought onto a single platform, we cannot successfully implement an effective strategy for this battle. So we have established a DIP through which we have co-opted 620 organisations. This includes 570 private and public sector banks, the police departments of 36 states, all investigation agencies, and telecom service operators."

The minister also addressed the growing problem of mobile phone theft.

He informed the house that, "A total of 35 lakh complaints for stolen mobile phones have been made, out of which 21 lakh mobiles have been traced. 5.6 lakh phones have already been retrieved and returned to the user."

On the issue of spoofed international calls, Scindia said, "Using the Centralised International Out Roaming Registry (CIOR), 1.35 crore international spoofed calls were blocked on the first day itself. At this point, we have blocked many gateways, resulting in a 97 per cent drop in the number of calls. And now such spoofed calls come at the rate of 3 lakh per day."

Further elaborating on steps taken to curb financial cyber fraud, Scindia said the government has developed a new Risk Indicator software that uses banking data to classify individuals engaging in fraudulent activities.

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Lastly, a newly developed software called the Risk Indicator, which, by using banking data, categorises fraudsters into high-risk, medium-risk, and very high-risk profiles. This data is shared with all banks so they can flag or stop transactions in real time. Based on this system, 3.7 lakh individuals have been flagged under risk categories. 44,000 debit/credit card transactions have been blocked. 1.55 lakh bank accounts have been frozen," he said.