No Special Mobile Phone Plan for Non-Smartphone Users: Government

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The Indian government has said that it doesn’t plan to force telcos to bring special mobile plans for non-smartphone users. At the moment, with almost every private telecom operator, if you need basic service validity, you need to spend close to Rs 200. Yes, this does bring unlimited voice calling and some amount of data, but it still doesn’t suit every consumer in the country. When asked about special mobile plans for non-smartphone users, Jyotiraditya Scindia, minister of communications and development of the northeastern region said that there’s no such consideration.

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Very recently, the telcos hiked the tariffs of mobile plans resulting in higher costs for mobile recharges. The government has previously confirmed that it doesn’t want to interfere with the decisions of the telecom operators. The tariffs are under the purview of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the government will leave the interference on tariffs with TRAI only.

The telcos have hiked tariffs to boost their average revenue per user (ARPU) figure. The higher the ARPU, the better it is for the telcos. For years, due to low tariffs, while consumers have been enjoying seamless connectivity, the telcos have been stressed about cashflow. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio still managed to become profitable with healthy cashflows, but the same wasn’t the case for Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).