Chennai Floods: BSNL, Vodafone, RCom, Aircel, Paytm, Skype offer free calls

Multiple Telecom operator have come forward in a bid to facilitate communication services in the flood-ravaged Chennai. Soon after Airtel offered free talk time and mobile data for users in Chennai, other telecom operators including BSNL, Aircel, Vodafone and Rcom have come forward to offer their help. In addition Paytm and Skype has also come forward to offer free calls.

BSNL is offering local + STD calls free from BSNL landline to any network, free mobile prepaid calls and SMS (BSNL to BSNL), 100MB free data for BSNL landline broadband customers & 2G/3G mobile customers and rebate for BSNL postpaid customers for seven days, In addition, billing cycle for postpaid mobile customers has been extended by 15 days.

Aircel is offering free 10 minutes Aircel to Aircel calls for three days, auto credit of Rs. 30, 10 free SMS pan India with three days validity and 100MB 2G/3G data free for three days. Vodafone is offering pre-approved 'chhota credit' of Rs. 10 to all prepaid users, 10 minutes free calling (Vodafone to Vodafone) for two days, free 100MB mobile data for two days and extended billing cycle for postpaid mobile users. RCom is offering loan facility to recharge balance by up to Rs. 10 and 50MB free mobile data for pre-paid users.

Paytm is offering Rs. 30 worth of talk-time instantly free of cost that can be available by calling the toll-free number 18001030033 and sharing the mobile number that need to be topped-up. The offer is available only for Chennai numbers and can be availed only once per number. To process the request it will take two hours due to overwhelming response. Skype is offering international calls to landlines and mobiles into Tamil Nadu free of charge for the next few days. This will be useful for people outside India to enquire about their relatives in Chennai. 

It’s worth pointing out that most of Chennai is still struggling with power failures, so mobile networks are still patchy. Telecom operators including Airtel, Idea and Vodafone are struggling to keep their service going amid unprecedented rainfall in Chennai and surrounding areas. The floods have caused major damage to telecom infrastructure, impacting networks across all operators in a huge way.

Kaiser Bey

Kaiser is a tech enthusiast who likes to write, read and talk about tech. He dreams of going to Mars and never come back. We hope that you find his posts on AndroGuider helpful and informative