Reliance Jio Asks TRAI To Take Strict Action Against Airtel And Vi; Here's Why

Reliance Jio has asked TRAI to take action against other private players, especially Airtel and Vi for spreading fake rumors about its firm. This development comes after Reliance Jio losing customers due to farmers' protests.

"These companies (Airtel and Vi) continue to remain directly/indirectly involved in supporting and furthering the insinuations and false and frivolous rumours of Reliance being an undue beneficiary of the farm bills for unethical pecuniary benefits in the form of induced porting of RJIL (Jio) customers," Reliance Jio said to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

Reliance Jio pointed out that Airtel and Vi are running advertisement campaigns via their agents, retailers, and employees. The operator said that these companies are misleading farmers from Punjab and other states. Besides, Jio said that Airtel and Vi are insisting its (Jio) subscribers migrate to their network.

Notably, retailers of Chandigarh, Firozpur, Faridabad, Bahadurgarh, and other parts of the country are porting out from Reliance Jio and joining other networks like Airtel and Vi, reports Economic Times. The report said that farmers are choosing other networks and requesting for porting out.

"We submit that Airtel and Vi remain unabated in pursuit, this vicious and divisive campaign through its employees, agents, and retailers. They are inciting the public by making preposterous claims that migrating Jio mobile numbers to their network would be an act to support farmers' protests," Reliance Jio said TRAI Secretary SK Gupta.

For the unaware, Reliance Jio has 404.15 million users while Airtel has 326.6 million and Vi has 295.5 million users as per September's TRAI data. The Mukesh Ambani owned telecom operator is targeting 500 million users. In addition, the company aims to increase its ARPU to Rs. 200 to Rs. 300 against Rs. 145.