Telcos offer freebies to help customers marooned in Chennai

Aircel, Airtel, Vodafone are offering free calls worth Rs 10-30 per number; also, BSNL won't charge for calls for a week in Tamil Nadu

Telecom operators have come to the rescue of people marooned in Chennai rains by offering free talktime and internet for limited period of time. This, even as waterlogging has affected operations of most of the service providers in the city.

Airtel, the top operator is providing Rs 30 talk time for all its pre-paid user in the city and an additional Rs 10 talktime for calls made within its network. Vodafone is offering Rs 10 talktime and additional Rs 10 talktime for intra network calls. Reliance Communications is allowing customers to make calls worth Rs 10 to any networks as part its offer. Aircel, the Chennai-based telecom firm, also said it would come up with similar plans.

Apart from the telecom operators, payments applications Paytm has announced recharge of Rs 30 on any Chennai number shared with it for free of cost.

Mobile phone subscribers were impressed with those announcements though as they were dissatisfied with weak network coverage in Chennai. Many users complained about poor or no coverage of Airtel, Vodafone and Aircel on the official Twitter handles of these service providers.

Within past 24 hours, Chenai and coastal Tamil Nadu has received around 20 cm rainfall that has brought the city to a grinding halt as flood waters entered into city areas. Most offices and the city airport remained shut and army was called in to rescue people stranded in waterlogged areas. The weather office has predicted more rains in next 24 hours.

Since the telecom operators are aware of the huge usage of over the top (OTT) messaging applications by smartphone users, they also offered free data for a period of two days.

Waterlogged roads near Kotturpuram after heavy rains in Chennai

Airtel and RCom offered 50 MB of data while Vodafone says its users can download upto 100 MB of data in two days starting today.

As a courtesy measure to help postpaid users, the telecom operators have extended the deadline of postpaid bill dates, which were ending today.

Meanwhile, state-run operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) said it will not charge calls for a week all over Tamil Nadu, as per an announcement made by telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. In view of the adverse weather conditions, the state government issued an advisory to private undertakings to permit their staff to avail themselves of holiday permission or work from home as is done in many IT and private companies on December 3 and December 4, 2015, said statement issued by Labour Department.