A big and relief news has come out for crores of mobile customers of Jio, Airtel and Vi (Jio-Airtel-Vi). If you do not use internet data in your phone and recharge only for calling and SMS, then now you are going to get relief from emptying your pocket. After the new rules of TRAI, now you will have many great options to choose cheap recharge without data.
TRAI's big action: Companies will have to pay recharge without data
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India i.e. TRAI has completely finalized the Telecom Consumer Protection (Thirteenth Amendment) Regulations, 2026. Under this new and strict rule, now all telecom companies will have to bring such special tariff vouchers i.e. STV in the market which have only the facility of voice calls and SMS, and not even a single GB of data is included in it.
The most important aspect of this order of TRAI is that if any telecom company offers an STV with voice, SMS and data to the customers, then it will also have to launch a plan of the same validity in the market which has the facility of only voice and SMS. This means that people who do not need internet will be able to choose an affordable plan with only calling and they will not have to pay for data without talk. The special thing is that the prices of such plans without data will also be reduced appropriately.
The rule will also apply to plans with short and long validity.
This new rule will be strictly applicable to all small recharge packs with validity of 30 days or less. Apart from this, it has been made mandatory for companies to provide voice and SMS-only option for recharge packs which are renewed on exactly the same date every month. If that renewal date does not appear in the calendar in a particular month, then the last date of that month will be considered as renewal.
Not just small recharges, TRAI has also directed companies to provide at least one voice and SMS-only STV with a long validity that matches the validity of long data plans. According to TRAI, some data-free plans existed earlier too, but their number was very less and they were mostly of long duration. Due to this, especially low income and elderly customers had to face huge difficulties in choosing affordable options for small budgets. The direct objective of this new change is to give complete freedom to the common customers to choose the right plan as per their need and budget.
Customers who do not use data will get the biggest benefit
The biggest benefit of this revolutionary step of TRAI will be given to those crores of mobile consumers of the country who either do not use the internet at all or use very little data. Now such customers will be able to choose the cheaper option of calling and messaging as per their need instead of expensive data packs and recharge.
This will completely free them from paying for internet data that they never use. This means that now customers will have to pay only for that service which they actually need.