Covid-19 Lockdown: Airtel To Pay Basic Salary To Its 25,000 Employees

Airtel has confirmed that it will pay its distributors, retailers, and dealers amid the coronavirus lockdown. The company is expected to clear the basic salary of 25,000 employees to help them during the lockdown. In fact, the telco has also written a letter to its distributors and informed the same.

"In order to help you tide over this tough time, we plan to extend a onetime support for the month of April. This is done with an endeavor to ensure that your field service executive (FSE) and other frontline colleagues get their basic income. You are therefore requested to pass on your staff remuneration for April," the telco said in a letter seen by Gizbot.

The telco said that its business is also not doing well. But still, it is confident that once this lockdown ends, the situation will change completely. "This disruption has impacted many categories sharply. In a way we are fortunate that we are associated with an industry that helps keep the 'lights on' - thereby, keeping the country connected and people in touch with their loved ones," Vani Venkatesh CEO, Delhi/NCR said.

Meanwhile, Economic Times reported that all chiefs are writing a letter to their distributors. Apart from that, the company is also providing insurance to its field executives along with scholarships for the children of the distributors.

Airtel Offers During Lockdown: Details

This announcement comes two days after Airtel extended the validity of its prepaid plans. The company has extended the validity of incoming calls until May 3. Under this initiative, the telco is offering this service to 30 million users.

Moreover, the company has joined hands with AI-startup Vahan to offer food, shelters, and job to its customers. The company will send a message to all workers and inform them about the food, shelters, and jobs. This initiative is again designed for limited numbers of subscribers.

If we go by COAI numbers, then all private players are offering benefits worth Rs. 600 crore at the moment. If we talk about Airtel only, then the telco has come up with a new strategy or new initiative to help its users. Earlier, the company has announced its partnership with ATMs, pharmacy, and grocery shops. This seems a really good move by the telco to support its users during tough times.

Apart from that, Airtel has announced that it is offering 1 Gbps broadband speed. This development comes after Jio announced that it is improving its data speed in Delhi and Gurugram.In fact, broadband and mobile internet demand have been increased by many folds ever since the lockdown was announced. The Department of Telecommunication has issued new numbers, which say that data consumption has been increased to 308,000 terabytes (TB), ever since the lockdown was announced. This also means that it will take a toll on the operators' networks.