Call centres in India are about to see restrictions on their activity with the United States Federal Trade Commission putting curbs on telemarketing calls that can be made to an individual in the United States with effect from October 1.

The FTC has launched a national do-not-call list that will help people stop telemarketing calls. The number of people registered for such a service is 12.5 million within the first week of launch and is growing.

The FTC says consumers will be able to sign up for the free service on a website by providing the phone number they want to protect.

If companies breach the regulations, they would have to pay up as much as $11,000 per wrong call. This is expected to have its effects on various industries including airlines, banks and telephone companies, which invariably employ the services of call centres.

Although, some of the companies and industry associations like the National Association of Software and Service Companies are putting a brave face, the Indian call centre companies would face a possible fall in business.

"There will be an impact on the companies in India who are handling such jobs. Besides, there are other potential financial implications like arbitration when a wrong call is made. Indian companies need to be very careful," said Arjun Vaznaik, chief operating officer, Tracmail.

The companies expect that such restrictions on business activity would be limiting the scope of operations of the Indian companies.

"It would put restrictions on the activities of the company as the list of potential calls come down. We are also seeing the number of people opting for this growing," said a senior executive with a leading Indian call centre company.

"We see a limited impact as the quantum of outbound telemarketing calls by the Indian call centres are very limited. Besides, the Indian companies work on a list of phone numbers provided by the US customers," said Kiran Karnik, president, Nasscom.

"The impact of such restrictions would be limited as it is not putting a complete ban on calls. Besides, there are other opportunities emerging for the call centre companies in India. I see the impact more on the telemarketing companies in the US," said Surabh Srivastava, executive chairman, Xanza.

Some companies point out that this move would not be a deterrent to business but would add more focus in the activities of the call centre companies.

According to Rajiv Soni, country head, Concerto, "This means that the list that the Indian companies would get now become more focussed. The list would be of people who encourage telemarketing and telesales. We think that this should not be seen as a revenue issue."