Jio Phone Users Will No Longer Get Rs. 153 Prepaid Recharge Plan

Jio Phone users no longer have the Rs. 153 prepaid recharge plan that used to provide 1.5GB high-speed data benefit on a daily basis for 28 days. The Rs. 153 plan was introduced back in July 2017 and received an update in February 2018 — alongside the arrival of the Rs. 49 prepaid plan. It also provided unlimited voice calling and 100 SMS messages per day to Jio Phone users. The new change comes just days after Jio ditched charges on off-net domestic voice calls that it imposed as a result of the Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC) last year.

The Jio site is reflecting the removal of the Rs. 153 prepaid recharge plan. With the latest update, Jio Phone users have the Rs. 185, Rs. 155, Rs. 125, and the Rs. 75 as the four recharge plans to choose from.

Jio is offering the Rs. 155 prepaid recharge plan as the closest option to the Rs. 153 plan. However, the former brings 1GB high-speed data per day, that is unlike the latter that included 1.5GB daily data allocation.

Details available on Web archives suggest that the Rs. 153 prepaid recharge plan existed at least until December 31. Some news outlets reported that alongside the Rs. 153 plan, Jio has removed the Rs. 99, Rs. 297, and Rs. 594 prepaid recharge plans. However, that isn't apparently the case as those plans aren't visible on Web archives at least until November 2019.

Gadgets 360 has reached out to Jio for clarity on the removal and will update this report when the company responds.

At the beginning of this month, Jio started offering free voice calls to other networks again — after ditching its earlier off-net call charges at 6 paise per minute. That move came as a result of the Bill and Keep regime that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has implemented since January 1.

What will be the most exciting tech launch of 2021? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.