Reliance Jio reduces validity period of its popular ₹1,299 annual plan

NEW DELHI - Reliance Jio, India’s largest and only profitable telco and a part of Mukesh Ambani's conglomerate, has reduced the validity period of its popular ₹1,299 annual plan from 365 days to 336 days, according to data available on the company’s website.

The same plan used to earlier offer unlimited Jio-to-Jio calls along with 24 GB data per day, and 12,000 minutes of free calls from Jio to non-Jio user with 365 days of validity. The plan also included 3,600 free SMSes.

However, now a recharge for ₹1,299 will give a subscriber the same benefits but for 336 days. The plan also offers complimentary subscription to Jio apps.

The development comes four months after Jio started charging for calls made to rival networks at 6 paise a minute, reneging on a promise to keep voice calls free for its customers and signalling the end of a bruising tariff war.

The operator had then said it was compelled "most reluctantly and unavoidably” to do this following the decision of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to defer scrapping of interconnect usage charges (IUC) by a year till 1 January, 2021.

IUC is paid by call-originating telcos to destination network. Jio is currently a net payer of IUC, while Airtel and Vodafone Idea are net recipients.