Unrestricted Incoming services till April 17th and Rs 10 talk time for all low-income users. Airtel on Monday announced that it has extended the prepaid pack validity for over 80 million customers till April 17, 2020
Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest integrated telecommunications company, today announced special measures to assist low-income group customers impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.
Bharti Airtel has extended the pre-paid pack validity for over 80 million customers till April 17th, 2020. All these customers will continue to get incoming calls on their Airtel mobile numbers even after the validity of their plan is exhausted. The company will also credit an additional Rs 10 of talk time in the pre-paid accounts of all these 80 million customers to enable them to make calls or send SMS and therefore stay connected with their loved ones.
The program has been kicked off, and these benefits will be available to users in the next 48 hours.
These 80 million customers effectively cover all underprivileged households on the Airtel Network. These special measures will particularly benefit migrant workers and daily wage earners who may have been impacted due to the nationwide lockdown to combat COVID-19. All other customers on Airtel’s network are already recharging their accounts using online platforms.
With these initiatives, all Airtel customers will have unrestricted access to vital information from local authorities as also be able to connect with whoever they choose to. Airtel’s network teams continue to work 24X7 to ensure that India’s digital backbone operates seamlessly.
Shashwat Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel said
In this difficult hour of fighting off the threat of Covid-19, Airtel is committed to ensuring that all people remain connected without any disruptions. And for this objective, it is critical to take care of the under-privileged daily wage earners of our country, whose lives have been disrupted due to the lock-down.
With this move, Airtel eyes to help migrant workers and daily wage earners particularly, who might have been impacted due to the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19. Heartbreaking pictures and videos of the daily wage workers walking over 100 kilometers to reach their villages had surfaced on social media. The workers alleged that due to the lockdown they are not left with enough money or a place to live so they are returning to their villages.
State-owned telecom operators BSNL and MTNL have also extended the validity period of their prepaid mobile services till April 20 and offer Rs 10 additional talk time even after zero balance, to enable users, especially poor and underprivileged, to stay connected during the 21-day nationwide lockdown.
