Essar launches pre paid card for one-time

NEW DELHI, September 9 : The on-off situation for implementing the

Caller Party Pay (CPP) regime had resulted in a wait and watch policy

amongst the cellphone subscribers leading to stagnation of the subscriber

base. To kick start the market again, Essar Cellphone has launched two new

schemes in Delhi: First Mobile Card and Plan One Offer.

Priced attractively at Rs 1,000, First Mobile Card is a pre paid card,

which is valid till November 15. It is free of activation charges and also

does not have any string of supplementary fee attached (which is the case

with Speed, another pre paid card from Essar). A subscriber gets a stored

usage value of Rs 900 (including tax) which translates into approximately

75 minutes of usage @Rs 12 per minute. A standalone card, FMC, however, is

not rechargeable. But once the validity is over, the subscriber can go in

for full subscription to Plan One Offer and avail Rs 3,000 worth of free

airtime.

In the second option, Plan One Offer, FMC comes bundled with three

different types of handsets, which include Alcatel, Motorola D368 and

Nokia 5110. The total cost of each package is Rs 8,550, Rs 8,990 and Rs

10,950 respectively. In this offer too there is no activation fee or

supplementary service fee. But there is an initial membership fee of Rs

2,200 besides the usual Rs 3,000 security deposit.