Airtel’s Minimum Recharge Costs Rs 45 For 28 Days: What Will Happen If You Don’t Recharge?

In a big blow to prepaid mobile users in India, Airtel increased their base tariff recharge by whooping 95% last year in the month of December.

This means that in order to maintain your prepaid Airtel mobile connection, every user will be required to spend 95% more, every 28 days.

Airtel Hikes Base Recharge By 95%

Till December 30th, the minimum recharge for using Airtel’s prepaid mobile was Rs 23, for 28 days. 

Now, this base recharge has been hiked to Rs 45, which is an increase of 95%, in a single go. This can be described as one of the steepest hikes by Airtel ever.

Airtel had issued a public notice in December, 2019, stating that all the benefits and features of the earlier Rs 23 base-recharge will be now applicable for Rs 45 base recharge.

The change has been executed pan-India.

What Will Rs 45 Base Recharge Provide?

To start with, incoming calls validity for 28 days will be provided with Rs 45 base plan.

Local and STD calls will be charged at 2.5 paisa per second, whereas video calls will be charged at 5 paisa per scond (only for national video calls. Strange logic, but we will cover this later).

50 paisa per MB will be charged for data.

Rs 1 per SMS for local numbers, Rs 1.5 per SMS for national usage, and Rs 5 per international SMS will be charged.

What Will Happen If You Don’t Recharge With Rs 45?

In case you wish to use your Airtel prepaid number, then Rs 45 has now become the minimum recharge for 28 days.

In case you don’t recharge with Rs 45 or higher plans, then the outgoing will be immediately barred, followed by incoming calls ban after grace period of 15 days.

Here is the message from Airtel when they increased base recharge to Rs 45: 

“This notice is for pre-paid subscribers of Bharti Airtel Limited and Bharti Hexacom Limited (‘Airtel’) in all service areas. With effect from 29th December 2019, the existing SUK base plan is being discontinued. Further, it will be mandatory to recharge with a voucher of ?45 or above, every 28 days to avail services. In case of non-recharge with a voucher of ?45 of above, all services will be suspended post the grace period.”