On Monday, Union Law and Justice Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad announced that both BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) and MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited) prepaid SIM users will get the services until April 20th.
In Addition to this, the government has also provided with an incentive of Rs. 10 so that outgoing calls remain active on their cell phones which will drastically help the needy and poor people at the time when the complete nation is under the lockdown for 21 days due to the novel Coronavirus.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Law and Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote on Twitter, “Now BSNL & MTNL will extend the validity period of their pre-paid mobiles up to 20 April 2020 & provide ₹10 of additional talk time even after zero balance. This will enable poor people to make calls for help even if they don’t have any balance left”.
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Now @BSNLCorporate & @MTNLOfficial will extend validity period of their pre-paid mobiles upto 20 April 2020 & provide ₹10 of additional talk time even after zero balance.
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) March 30, 2020
This will enable poor people make calls for help even if they don’t have any balance left.#21daysLockdown
On Monday, Prasad held a meeting with BSNL and heads of all the states and Union Territories (UTs) and also the Chief Postmaster General of the Postal Department online via the use of video conferencing.
This decision of extending the validity was announced after Bharti Airtel announced that the company will extend the validity of pre-paid packs of more than 8 crores of pre-paid users till the 17th of April in order to help the company’s low-income level user base cope up with the 3 weeks nationwide lockdown which has brought the country almost to a standstill.
The company will also offer these users with unrestricted incoming services till the 17th of April along with an Rs. 10 talk-time.
