BENGALURU, Aug 13 (Reuters) - India's telecom watchdog

on Tuesday directed service providers to stop all promotional

calls from unregistered callers and blacklist them as it looks

to tackle a surge in spam and phishing calls that has seen

people lose millions of rupees.

The government has been looking to clamp down on the

spike in such calls including those where scammers pose as

representatives of firms like FedEx ( FDX ) and Blue Dart and extract

sensitive financial information by sending phishing links in the

pretext of retrieving lost packages.

"All promotional voice calls from the unregistered

senders/unregistered telemarketer using Telecom Resources shall

be stopped immediately," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of

India said in a statement shared by the government.

Such unregistered callers will be blacklisted for up to two

years, the statement said, adding that telecom service providers

would need to submit updates on action taken on scam callers on

the 1st and 16th of every month.

(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by

Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)