DND (Do Not Disturb) service helps the mobile users to block unwanted promotional calls or marketing SMS from various call center executives in India.
DND is a special regulation initiated by TRAI, where you can register your mobile number to avoid telemarketing calls that are of no interest to you.

If you’re frustrated with the repeated cold calling & pitching different promotional offers, you can simply opt for the DND service on your mobile number.
Before going ahead, please understand that you can either block all the promotional offers or only from a specific category.
Choose the option based on your interests. If you don’t know what to select, simply, select ‘0’ which blocks all the categories in total.
DND Service Preference Options
Categories | Preference Code | Send SMS Message to ‘1909’ |
Banking/Insurance/Finance/Credit Cards | 1 | START 1 |
Real Estate | 2 | START 2 |
Education | 3 | START 3 |
Health | 4 | START 4 |
Consumer Goods and Automobiles | 5 | START 5 |
Products & Services/Communication/Broadcasting/ Entertainment/IT | 6 | START 6 |
Tourism and Leisure | 7 | START 7 |
Block Everything | 0 | START 0 |
Receive Calls Again in Future | STOP |
How to Activate DND Service on Your Mobile Numbers?
Please follow the below steps to carefully block the spam calls or promotions messages on your number.
In case you wanted to block promotional offers only from a particular category, then send SMS “START <Select Preference>” to 1909.
In this example, the preference code can be anything from 1 to 7, based on your category choice.
Say if you want to block calls/offers related to banking, credit cards or financial products, then you can send “START 1” to 1909.
Likewise, you can do so for any other categories of your choice and activate your DND service for free.
How to Deactivate Do Not Disturb Service through SMS?
If you want to receive these promotional calls or SMS in the future, you can simply send another message from your mobile phone and deactivate the DND service.
To receive all the marketing calls on your number, simply follow the below steps.
How to Activate/Deactivate DND Service through IVRS?
Whether you’re a prepaid mobile user or a postpaid customer, you can directly call the customer care at the IVR number 1909 (toll free) to activate or deactivate the DND service.
Frequently Asked Questions about DND Service
Only the commercial calls and marketing messages will be blocked by sending the DND request. NCPR (DND) won’t block your regular bank SMS alerts, financial communications, online booking confirmations, personal calls etc… So, don’t worry!
Once registered with the DND service, you’ll receive an SMS confirming the preference option you’ve selected along with a unique registration number within the next 24 hours.
The registration will come into effect 7 days from the date of placing the DND request from your mobile.
Alternatively, you can visit the DND or Customer Preference Portal, type your mobile number and check your DND status.
Usually, all the commercial calls come from numbers starting with ‘140’, which is a special code for telemarketers. All these calls will be coming only between 9 AM and 9 PM.
If you receive spam calls even after 7 days of registering with DND service, you can raise a complaint with your service provider within 3 days by dialing 1909 and remember to quote the telephone number from which you received the call or SMS.
The service provider will then take an action against your complaint and get back to you within 7 days with the status of your complaint.
Any customer (Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Vodafone, Jio) should have to wait for at least 3 months (90 days) before applying again for new DND activation after a previous attempt.
Yes, you can request DND on your landline number through the IVRS option by dialing 1909 and selecting the category to block.
All the calls and messages made/sent to 1909 are completely free of cost. It is a toll-free number.
Unfortunately, DND is only for blocking promotional calls from telemarketers and not for blocking individual phone calls.
You can easily block single contacts by adding them to the blacklist option in your phone itself.
That’s all Friends! So, next time, if you encounter any such annoying marketing messages or calls that doesn’t interest you, simply follow steps to activate or deactivate DND service on your mobile number for free and stay relaxed.