Chennai: Telecom companies such as BSNL, Airtel, Vodafone, RCom and Aircel are offering free talktime to their customers in the city that is witnessing the heaviest rainfall seen in close to a century.
Airtel, whose services have been impacted in certain areas due to power failures by the unprecedented rains and floods, said it will offer talk time credit upto Rs 30 for its prepaid mobile customers. It will also provide free 50MB mobile data with a validity of 2 days to prepaid customers.
It added that postpaid and fixed line customers, whose bills are due to be paid immediately, will get an extended time to make the payment.
"The uninterrupted rains have resulted in excessive water logging and disruption of essential services in Chennai, thus causing power failures and impacting our services in some regions. We at Airtel are working with local authorities to enable smooth mobile communication for Airtel customers across the city," it added.
As of September 30, Tamil Nadu (which includes Chennai region) had 82.06 million telephone subscribers. State-run BSNL said it will allow free local and STD calls to other BSNL mobile phone users as well as 100 MB data for seven days for its prepaid users.
A rental rebate of seven days and extension of billing cycle by 15 days, it said in a statement.
Vodafone said it is offering a credit of Rs 10 and 10 minutes of Vodafone to Vodafone calling to all pre-paid customers as well as 100 MB of free mobile data. Similarly, RCom is offering 10 minutes of all-India free calling and 50 MB of data free.
Aircel will offer free 10 minutes Aircel to Aircel calls across India to all its Chennai customers for the next three days. Apart from credit of Rs 30, the operator will also provide 10 Free all India SMS and 100MB 2G/3G free data valid for 3 days.
Digital recharge company Paytm is also chipping in to help residents.
"Residents can call on 18001030033 and share the mobile number that they want to get topped-up. Paytm will facilitate a Rs 30 recharge instantly free of cost," it said in a statement.
"We have made calls free for pre-paid users in Chennai so that they dont have barrier in their mind of recharging their account in this distress situation. Priority is to enable them stay connected in this situation," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava said.
BSNL estimates that the free call services may not cost it more than Rs 25 crore.
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