Reliance Jio withdraws ‘Summer Surprise’ offer after TRAI’s advisory

The Telecom company Reliance Jio said it would withdraw the Jio Summer Surprise offer after an advisory from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). This complimentary offer had extended it's free offering further up to three months for the users who are willing to subscribe to Jio Prime membership.

For the first time, the TRAI stepped in to stop the company from providing such offers. But the customers who have already subscribed to this offer before its discontinuation will be eligible for the free service. It is already known what this Jio Prime service had in its box. The users who subscribed for this had to pay Rs.99 annually and monthly recharge of Rs.303 up to March 31 to avail free service.

But later on, the company extended this deadline to April 15 with an announcement that the customers who pay Rs.303 before this extended date will be eligible for free services for the first three months of Prime subscription time period.

The regulatory asked Jio to stop this extension of free service when other operators argued that it is wrong on the part of TRAI to allow Jio to continue its free service for more than three months. Initially, Jio came up with this offer which had a time period of September to December 2016. Later they extended it from January to March.

Now when they planned of further extending it until April, it made other operators, as well as TRAI, raise its eyebrows. Operators such as Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular have already challenged TRAI's for letting Jio continue its promotional offer in the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal.

On Thursday, regarding this, the mobile operator said, "Today, Trai has advised Jio to withdraw the 3 months complimentary benefits of Jio Summer Surprise. Jio accepts this decision. Jio is in the process of fully complying with the regulator's advice, and will be withdrawing the 3 months complimentary benefits of Jio Summer Surprise as soon as operationally feasible, over the next few days."