A huge rise in mobile phone usage has stoked an unacceptable surge in public rudeness, and the most annoying offenders should be sent to prison, according to India's equivalent of the House of Lords.

The country's 277 million mobile users “often create nuisance”, the Committee on Petitions, an influential panel of the Rajya Sabha, parliament's upper house, decreed. “They need to be educated where and how to use the device without annoying others,” it added, while endorsing a call for draconian new laws to do just that.

The comments came in response to a petition filed by Gurjit Singh, a member of the public whose demands include making carrying mobiles at funerals and temples illegal and the installation of mobile phone jammers on school buildings to stop students making calls.

Mr Singh also wants phone companies to deploy equipment to disable mobiles on the roads to avoid traffic accidents, and is calling for a law under which civil servants could be imprisoned if they make personal calls on their handsets during office hours.

His final demand is that mobile phones fitted with cameras be outlawed “for the safety of women”.

The measures may appear extreme but have already won significant backing, including from The Times of India, the country's most-read English language newspaper.

India's mobile phone market is one of the few corners of the global economy to have remained impervious - so far - to the credit crunch. In January the country added a record 15 million subscribers, making its mobile network the world's fastest-growing, with customers from poor rural areas driving the surge.

In cinema theatres across India audience members can often be heard chatting on their new handsets, discussing the plot of the film as it unfolds on screen.

Even doctors commonly answer calls while treating patients. “People think nothing of leaving their phones on or holding a long, loud conversation during plays, films and other public shows,” The Business Standard newspaper recently complained.

The problem is made worse because the phone companies force as many conversations as possible through a limited amount of infrastructure, a cost-cutting measure that executives privately admit lessens the clarity of calls and means users often have to shout to make themselves heard.

There are, however, doubts over whether tough new penalties would work, especially when laws banning other public nuisances, such as spitting, have failed.

RCom, India's fastest-growing mobile provider, said: “This is really a matter of personal responsibility.”

Chattering society

— Indians bought 132 million mobile phones in 2008

— Ten years ago India had fewer than one million mobile phone users

— The regulator wants to add an 11th digit to phone numbers to cope with an expected increase to 500 million subscribers in the next few years

— Last year the mobile phone operator Spice launched the £10 “people's phone”, aimed at the poorest end of the market

Source: Times archives

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