Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) on Friday announced the extension of the validity for prepaid plans of their low-income subscribers till May 3.
The decision comes against the backdrop of extension of the nationwide lockdown till May 3.
"Airtel is extending the validity of these accounts till May 3, 2020. All these customers will now be able to receive incoming calls on their Airtel mobile numbers even after the validity of their plan is exhausted," Airtel said in a statement.
Initially, to assist low income customers on its network during the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown, Bharti Airtel had announced special measures including the extension of validity of their mobile pre-paid packs till April 17.
“Many of these customers have been able to recharge through several channels activated by Airtel including - ATMs, Post Offices, Grocery stores and Chemist shops, in addition to digital channels. However, close to 30 million such customers have still not been able to recharge their pre-paid mobile accounts,” Airtel said in a statement, adding that the extension is for these customers.
Vodafone Idea said in a statement: "In an endeavour to ensure that low income, prepaid customers using feature phones remain connected amidst these troubled times, Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL), has announced the extension of incoming services for these users till 3rd May 2020."
It said that this free of cost extension of incoming service validity will enable millions of feature phone users of both Vodafone and Idea to continue to receive incoming calls, even if the validity of their plan expires earlier.
Reliance Jio, on its part introduced a new system to enable its subscribers to recharge the account of any customer on its network through a mobile app and also earn around 4% commission.
The development comes at a time when many people are unable to recharge their phones due to the lockdown. Telecom regulator TRAI has been pushing service providers to extend the validity of all prepaid connections during the period.
Reliance Jio has launched the JioPOS Lite app on Google Play store, from where a customer can download it and start recharging the phone of any subscriber on its network.
"There is a joining fee of Rs 1,000 but the company has waived it off as an introductory offer. Jio customers downloading this app will have to load a minimum of Rs 1,000 for the first time and thereafter they can load recharge for sale for a minimum value of Rs 200," a source told PTI.
The app has recorded over 5 lakh downloads till date.
The source said this will give Jio customers a comfortable option to get their phones recharged even if shops are not opened during the lockdown period.
With PTI inputs