How Are Indian Telcos Helping During Jammu and Kashmir Flood Situation?

The situation in Jammu and Kashmir is dire: an estimated of 215 people have died in the state’s worst flood in six decades and around 90,000 people have been rescued so far. What made the matters worse is, when the floods first hit the state, the entire carrier network collapsed. It reminds me of the 2005 Mumbai floods and the plight of people who were unable to contact their near and dear ones.

  • Make Telecom Talk My Trusted Source
  • Source of Google
  • Source of Google

While the network is restored now, let’s look at what telcos have to offer during the crisis situation in J&K.

Aircel

– Aircel recently started offering Aircel Locate, a free location based tracking service, to help people locate their friends and family. All that a user needs to do is send an SMS LOCATE to 54654 from anywhere in India and they will immediately receive the nearest known location and the latitude/longitude of the requested user. There are some privacy concerns here to be addressed but there’s not much to do in the current situation.

– Aircel has also made its missed call service for free for its users in the worst affected areas in Kashmir.

– Mobile Charging booths are deployed for all stranded, to make calls free of cost.

– As markets are closed, Aircel Credit is extended to entire based. Subscribers can also avail top up on the loan.

– It moved all subscribers from GRACE Bucket to ACTIVE bucket without recharge to enable them to start communicating.

– All automatic VAS renewals have been on hold so that subscribers have sufficient balance to make calls.

Airtel

– Airtel is offering free calling facility for 60 minutes per day to each of its subscribers from 12-17 September.

– It has also setup 5 VSAT terminals at critical areas to create public Wi-Fi hotspots, thus enabling free data services.