TRAI Asks Telecom Operators To Increase Validity Of Prepaid Plans: Report

In order to help the customers, the telecom regulator TRAI has asked telecom operators to increase the validity of all prepaid plans so that users can get all benefits without worrying about the recharge. The regulator has also written a letter to Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone-Idea, BSNL, and MTNL, urging them to take all steps to help users during this lockdown period.

"Though the telecommunication services have been considered as essential services and thus granted an exception from closing down. However, lockdown may adversely affect the working of customer service centers/point of sale locations," TRAI was quoted by Economic Times.

The regulator said that all shops are closed due to the lockdown and if anyone wants to recharge their number via offline mode, and then there will be a problem for them. Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently announced a lockdown until April 15 due to Coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Reliance Jio has announced that its numbers can be recharged from 90,000 ATMs. The company has announced via its Twitter account. The tweet reads: "Recharge your Jio number at your nearest ATM." The telco has partnered with nine banks such as HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Citi Bank, DCB Bank, AUF Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank.

The telco also said that customers have to check the recharge options, before recharging the number. Then, they have to write the exact recharge amount. Apart from that, the company has launched a new plan for its broadband customers, where it is offering 100GB data at 10Mbps speed.
However, the speed will be reduced to 1Mbps once the data over. The plan is available for one month. Lastly, this plan provides a subscription to video calling, voice calls, Jio applications, and video conferencing.