New Delhi:Partly immoilised by arthritis, Savita Khanna, 65, had hoped that her mobile phone would offer her some relief, but the Vasant Vihar homemaker didn't bargain for the unsolicited SMS assault. Being woken up by unwanted SMSes have spoilt her sleep pattern irretrievably.

"Just the other night I was woken up by the beep of a junk SMS around 2 am,"she complains bitterly. If Khanna feels helpless, others have devised ways to circumvent the problem. P.C. Jain, principal, Shri Ram College of Commerce, now switches off his mobile phone each time he goes to sleep.

"There is no point arguing with the service provider or losing your temper," he says. "The only option available with the consumers is to avoid these SMSes. So I switch off my mobile each night around 9 pm."Agrees Amit Saigal, editor, Rock Street Journal, "These junk text messages are a big nuisance. But apart from deleting these messages, what else can we do?"

Even being on the National Do Not Call (NDNC) Registry doesn't help, as Mallika Gupta, communications officer, WWF-India, learnt to her dismay. For frequent travellers, junk SMSes aren't just a pestilential fact of daily life, but a financial burden as well. Le Passage to India managing director (MD) Arjun Sharma says he gets 20-odd text messages in his inbox daily.

"The commercial text mes-sages suggesting products and services to 'slim' down quickly hurt me the most,"he says on a lighter note. But these messages cease to be funny when Sharma's mobile bill bloats up each time he goes abroad, which is very often.

"I end up paying an exorbitant amount and junk SMSes account for 20 per cent of it," he complains, adding that each incoming text message sets him back by `60 to `100 when he's not in the country.

Hoping for technology to come to the rescue of millions of harassed telecom company subscribers, Sharma says, "I wish each mobile phone has a feature that auto deletes each junk SMS." Then he echoes the suspicion of all mobile service subscribers, "I am sure the service providers have a fair idea about how to stop this nuisance but they aren't doing much."

Consumer rights lawyers urge consumers not to be give up without a fight. Advocate Aditya Agarwal, who practises at the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, says that each mobile user must send a letter or e-mail to the service providers asking them to restrict junk messages.

"In case subscribers continue to get junk text messages, then they should file claims for deficiency in services under the Consumer Protection Act," says Agarwal. " The letters or e-mails sent by them will stand as evidence against the service provider."

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