Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India, the country’s top two telecom operators, said that they are providing small credits or talk time loan to help their respective prepaid customers who may find it hard to get their connections recharged due to the government's move to take Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes out of circulation, which has also caused shortage of notes of small denominations.
The move by the two telcos comes after government banned use of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes from midnight of November 8, Tuesday. Users having notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 would have to deposit them back to their accounts through banks or post offices, while currency of Rs 100 and lower is being allowed for any transactions.
These telcos have also extended bill payment date by three days for postpaid customers in metro cities, including Delhi NCR. Vodafone said that it has already sent out a message to its customers saying that it has extended the bill due date to November 15, 2016.
Vodafone said that it is offering Rs 10 credit for talktime to prepaid customers with a service charge of Rs 3 per transaction and a validity of 7 days. The credit can be availed by sending an SMS ‘CREDIT’ to toll free number 144.
The second largest telco said that its customers can also avail ‘Internet Credit’ of 30 MB with a validity of 24 hours. The data can be used across 2G/3G/4G networks. Vodafone said that customers can send USSD short code to activate both internet and chhota credit.
"We are extending bill payment due date for postpaid customers by upto 3 days and will provide some talk time loan to prepaid customers to ensure there is continuity of services and they are not inconvenienced," Airtel spokesperson said in a statement.
Vodafone India’s Business Head – Delhi & NCR, Apoorva Mehrotra said, “To help our customers tide over the demonetization period, Vodafone has extended post paid bill payment deadline by 3 days. Pre-paid Vodafone customers can opt for small credits on both talktime and data, allowing them to stay confidently connected.
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Vodafone Chhota Credit enables consumers to make a call even if they do not have sufficient balance in their prepaid account and I-Credit provides seamless data experience.”
