Reliance Jio has silently removed the sachet packs of Rs 19 and Rs 52 which were available to the company's prepaid users before the introduction of IUC Top-Ups. The Rs 19 sachet pack offered benefits for one day, whereas the Rs 52 plan ships with a validity of seven days. That said, Reliance Jio's combo plans for prepaid users now start at Rs 98 and it offers benefits for 28 days from the date of recharge. After the introduction of IUC Top-Ups, Reliance Jio customers are forced to make an additional recharge of either Rs 10 or up to Rs 1,000 for dialling other networks like Airtel, Vodafone Idea, BSNL and MTNL. At the moment, we don't have a piece of official information on why the company removed these sachet packs, but it's predictable as it doesn't make any sense for the customers to recharge the sachet packs along with the IUC Top-Ups.
Reliance Jio Sachet Packs Removed: What Could Be the Reason?
For the unaware, Reliance Jio launched the said Sachet Packs for prepaid customers back in January 2018, alongside the unlimited combo and long-term prepaid plans. As for the benefits, the Rs 19 sachet pack used to offer unlimited voice calling without any FUP limit, 150MB of 4G data and 20 SMSes for one day. The Rs 52 sachet pack ships with 1.05GB of data benefit, unlimited voice calls and 70 SMSes for a period of one week or seven days. Also, these packs offered complimentary access to Jio's content apps like JioTV, JioCinema, JioSaavn and so on.
With the removal of these sachet packs, Reliance Jio's unlimited combo packs now start at Rs 98 and it offers 2GB of 4G data, unlimited voice calls and 300 SMSes for a period of 28 days.
The removal of these prepaid sachet packs from Reliance Jio comes right after the introduction of IUC Top-Up vouchers. Jio's IUC Top-Up vouchers start at Rs 10 and go all the way up to Rs 1,000, and they offer up to 14,074 minutes of voice calling to other networks.
It doesn't make any sense for the Jio prepaid customers recharging with Rs 19 or Rs 52 sachet pack to choose any of the IUC Top-Up voucher priced at a minimum of Rs 10. If a customer on Rs 19 sachet pack opts the any of the IUC Top-Up vouchers, then the overall cost comes to a minimum of Rs 29 and above.
Reliance Jio Customers Unhappy With the Introduction of IUC Vouchers
Back on September 5, 2016, Reliance Jio Chairman, Mukesh Ambani announced that Jio would offer voice calls free for lifetime, but the company broke the promise by introducing IUC Top-Up vouchers. Reliance Jio has a wide range of prepaid plans offering up to a whopping 5GB data per day and all of these plans delivered unlimited voice calling benefit to the customers. But Jio is now charging 6 paise per minute for every voice call made to another network and the customers are not happy with this move.
Both Airtel and Vodafone Idea said they would continue offering unlimited voice calls and there won't be any additional charges because they're GSM operators and not LTE-only operator like Reliance Jio. Yesterday, Jio said that it has surpassed 350 million subscriber base mark and continues to add more than 10 million new users every month. However, it will be interesting to see how these number change in the coming months or the current quarter as Jio customers are willing to make a move to other operators.
