Airtel, Vodafone, Idea seemingly discontinue talk-time recharge packs: Here’s how it will affect you

Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular have seemingly stopped offering the top-up recharge of lower denominations. Due to the increasing demand for the low-cost tariff recharge tiers that combine voice, data, and SMS into a single plan, both the companies could apparently do away with the talk time plans.

Ever since Reliance Jio disrupted the telecom market in India, the rivalling telcos have been compelled to dole out as many benefits to retain the customers who were increasingly migrating to the former. In the course, the users began switching to the combo packs while the top-up packs are seemingly becoming obsolete.

The talk time recharge packs of Rs 20, Rs 30, and so forth have disappeared from the recharge platforms that include the company’s respective websites, digital wallets, and other mobile recharge apps, first spotted by Telecom Talk. That said, the Rs 10 recharge pack is available to buy for the users of all three operators.

In addition, high-value recharge packs including that cost Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000 are listed on the company websites. It is not clear whether the plans have been discontinued temporarily or indefinitely, considering the users are more likely to go for the combo packs.

We have reached out to Airtel and Vodafone Idea and will update the story as and when the companies release statements to us.

Airtel recently began offering the “simplified combo recharge packs” of lower denominations. Available at Rs 35, Rs 65, and Rs 95, these combo recharge packs provide unlimited calling, SMS benefits, and “generous” amount of data benefits to the customers in Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh West circles initially. This means that the customers will need to recharge their numbers every 28 days, which is when the validity of the subscribed pack will expire.

Vodafone and Idea have removed all the low-value recharge packs except for the Rs 10. The other recharge categories such as STVs, long-term plans, and bundled packs are available to buy across all the recharge platforms. Both the companies recently merged their individual businesses in India to form a single entity called Vodafone Idea Ltd that surpasses Airtel and Reliance Jio in terms of the user base in the country.

IDEA Cellular Limited