Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the government-owned telecom service provider (TSP), has revised the validity and benefits of its Rs. 197 prepaid plan. The company has essentially reduced the validity and benefits of the plan, which used to earlier offer 70 days of plan validity, 15 days of core benefits validity with unlimited voice calling, a quota of 100 SMS messages per day, and 2GB of data per day. The validity of the plan has been reduced to 54 days, with the unlimited voice calling benefit and 100 SMS per day quota being removed.
BSNL’s Old Plan, Reduced Validity
According to BSNL’s website, the TSP is now letting its subscribers recharge their phone numbers for Rs. 197, which will have the validity of 54 days. The revised prepaid plan will offer users 300 minutes of voice calling, 4GB of total data, and a total of 100 SMS messages quota. After the data quota is exhausted, users will get unlimited data but at 40Kbps speed. This is significantly lower than what the company used to offer earlier.
BSNL will now offer a total of 100 SMS quota for the validity of the plan
Photo Credit: BSNL
BSNL used to offer, with the Rs. 197 prepaid plan, unlimited local and STD voice calling, 2GB per day data quota for 15 days, a quota of 100 SMS messages per day for 15 days, and 15 days access to Zing Music. Moreover, the overall validity of the plan was 70 days, with validity of the core benefits limited to 15 days. Hence, the benefits a subscriber could get with a recharge of Rs. 197 has now been reduced, especially the validity, which has been cut down by 16 days. This plan would have been preferred primarily by subscribers who just wanted to keep their phone numbers active, without seeking many benefits. Now, with the reduced validity, they might have to look for other options.
The government-owned TSP has also been on an upward trajectory in terms of quarterly profits. In the fourth quarter (Q4) for financial year (FY) 2024-25, BSNL posted a profit after tax of Rs. 280 crore, compared to a loss of Rs. 849 crore in the same quarter in FY 2023-24.
Additionally, in Q4 2024-25, BSNL also spent on building infrastructure by building network towers/equipments etc worth Rs. 15,324 crore and buying spectrum worth Rs. 10,698, primarily focusing on 4G roll-out and fibre.
