Airtel unveils PCO service in MSRTC buses

Airtel unveils PCO service in MSRTC buses

Airtel, India’s leading mobile service provider has today unveiled another unique offering for Maharashtra. The company has announced the launch of Airtel PCO services in MSRTC Buses (Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation), thus becoming the first service provider to offer this unique service across Maharashtra. Airtel has tied-up with MSRTC to offer the Airtel prepaid PCO service in over 4500 MSRTC long distance and medium-long distances buses. This facility will enable MSRTC bus commuters to make calls to any destination in India for Re.1, while traveling across the length and breadth of the state.

MSRTC bus commuters in Maharashtra can make Local & STD calls while on the move at just Re. 1. The local calls will be charged at Re. 1 for 60 seconds and STD calls at Re. 1 per 20 seconds.

Speaking about the tie-up Mr. Mandeep Bhatia, COO (Mobile Services), Bharti Airtel Limited, said, “ Airtel MSRTC tie-up is a testimony of Airtel’s network leadership that spans across cities, small towns, villages and key tourists & pilgrimage destinations along with key national and state highways. The Airtel MSRTC PCO service alliance is a logical step to ride over Airtel’s superior network width in the state and testifies our commitment to offer customer centric services to the people in Maharashtra. ”

Speaking on the occasion Mr Sudhakar Paricharak, MLA, Chairman, MSRTC, said, “MSRTC has always endavoured to provide better facilities to its passengers. Taking advantage of the recent revolution in the field of communication, MSRTC in collaboration with Airtel is now launching telephone facility in its 4000 odd buses to facilitate communication for its passengers. This added facility will definitely be MSRTC’s one more step towards modernization.”

Commenting on the alliance Mr. Madhukar Kokate, IAS, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, MSRTC, said, “MSRTC in a tie-up with Airtel has launched this PCO facility for a period of two years in its over 4000 buses plying on medium and long distance routes. Depending upon the response of the passengers, this facility will be extended to other buses on other routes as well.”

The PCO service reiterates Airtel’s network leadership and its commitment to drive affordable telephony in Maharashtra. With this alliance about 17, 00,000 MSRTC bus commuters can avail the Airtel PCO service in a day.

Currently over 1000 PCO’s have been installed in the MSRTC buses. The entire installations would be completed by last week of May 07. The PCO installations would be undertaken across 248 MSRTC Bus Depots spread over, six regions that would cover 30 major cities including Pune, Mumbai, Nasik, Amravati, Aurangabad and Nagpur and close to 218 towns in Maharashtra.

The Airtel PCO is a GSM based phone and will work on prepaid platform. MSRTC will be responsible for the entire cash management for the PCO operation in their buses, while Airtel will be responsible for the maintenance cost of the PCOs.