- The company will provide these users unrestricted incoming services till 17 April and ₹10 talk time
- These benefits will be available to users in the next 48 hours, Bharti Airtel said
NEW DELHI : Bharti Airtel on Monday announced that it will extend the validity of pre-paid packs for over 8 crore customers till 17 April to shield its low-income user base during the three-week nationwide lockdown to curb the novel Coronavirus epidemic.
The company will also provide these users unrestricted incoming services till 17 April and ₹10 talk time.These 8 crore customers effectively cover all under-privileged households on the operator’s network, and the measures will particularly benefit migrant workers and daily wage earners hit by the nationwide lockdown, the company said in a release.
These benefits will be available to users in the next 48 hours, 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,” Bharti Airtel chief marketing officer Shashwat Sharma said as per the release.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a three week lockdown starting 25 March in a bid to curb the spread of the pandemic in India as cases had just crossed 500.
The lockdown is expected to hit daily wage earners and the poor the most, and this has forced the government to undertake a slew of measures like increasing the wages under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, transfer of cash to the women Jan Dhan bank account holders and free cylinders, among others.
So far, there are 1,287 total cases confirmed, out of which 118 have recovered while 40 died.
