Airtel Revises Its Affordable Recharge Plans, Discontinues Rs. 49 Option

Airtel on Wednesday revised its prepaid recharge portfolio by discontinuing the affordable Rs. 49 plan and replacing it with a Rs. 79 option. The revision will come into effect on a pan-India basis starting Thursday, July 29. The Rs. 49 Airtel prepaid recharge plan provided Rs. 38.52 of talktime, 100MB data, and 28 days of validity. Last week, Airtel revised its postpaid plans for both retail and corporate customers and discontinued the Rs. 749 family postpaid plan.

With the new update in place, Airtel users will no longer be able to get the Rs. 49 prepaid recharge plan that was available with 28 days validity. Users will instead have to opt for the Rs. 79 plan as the most affordable option.

The Rs. 79 Airtel prepaid plan comes with benefits including Rs. 64 talktime, 1 paisa per second local/ STD call rates, 106 minutes of outgoing calls, and 200MB data. These come with a validity of 28 days.

Airtel has discontinued its cheapest monthly prepaid recharge plan just a few months after it offered the Rs. 49 recharge for free and doubled the benefits of the Rs. 79 plan. That move was announced to aid customers amid growing cases of COVID-19 in the country in May and was touted to benefit 55 million low-income users.

In addition to increasing the base tariff of its prepaid network, Airtel last week revised its postpaid plans and made the Rs. 999 plan as the lowest family postpaid plan for retail customers. The telco discontinued the earlier Rs. 749 family postpaid plan as a part of the revision.

Vi (formerly Vodafone Idea) followed in the footsteps of Airtel and also revised postpaid plans for its retail and corporate customers. Unlike Airtel, Vi has the Rs. 49 prepaid plan in place that comes with Rs. 38 talktime and 100MB data for 28 days. The operator is, however, soon likely to follow its New Delhi-based counterpart and bring a similar revision in the coming days.