With retail outlets across the country shutdown, nearly 100 million mobile users were unable to recharge their pre-paid connections duringthe lockdown period.

While this could have prevented subscribers from making outgoing calls due to lack of adequate balance, incoming calls were not barred as operators had extended the validity of the services till May 3. The validity of the services were extended free.

“There are 350 million feature phone users in the country, who were impacted as there were no facilities to recharge, of this we believe there are about 100 million subscribers are facing recharge issues,” Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) Director-General Rajan S Mathews told BusinessLine .

“We have asked for opening up of recharge outlets and once these open up, I think this issue will be solved,” he said.

On its part, COAI had written to secretaries of all states urging them to open up recharge locations, and is also following up with various District Magistrates.

Only about 10 per cent of the total 1.1 billion SIM cards are not being recharged. There are 650 million people with smartphones, who are able to recharge their connections over the web.

“This would not materially impact the operators’ revenues,” he added.

Incentives by operators

In an attempt to keep customers connected telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had extended the validity of mobile pre-paid packs till May 3. The companies had earlier announced special measures, including the extension of validity of mobile pre-paid packs, for low-income customers, till May 3.

The operators also enabled recharging through other channels such as ATMs, post offices, grocery stores and chemist shops, in addition to digital channels. On April 17, Airtel had said that close to 30 million customers were not been able to recharge their pre-paid mobile accounts.

READ more:Airtel, Voda-Idea extend free incoming to low-end customers till May 3

On Friday, Vodafone Idea launched VIC, an AI-powered digital customer service and support virtual assistant for its customers. The virtual assistant, developed by its technology partner ORISERVE, is for both Vodafone and Idea brands.

VIC enables customers to get responses service requirements such as bill payments, recharges, VAS, plan activation, new connection, data balance and bill requests.

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