Reliance Jio dumps half of its field engineers ahead of launch

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) will soon be ending the contracts of about half of Reliance Jio field engineers as the roll-out work has been completed and Jio is all set to start services across the country.

Strategic Manpower Solutions Ltd (SMSL), a unit of Reliance Industries, had hired ex-military personnel on a two-year contract for the telecom venture. Now that the work is over, RIL is terminating the contracts of half of Jio's field engineers before the full two-year term.

The affected employees are reported to be planning to approach the government and other agencies against their premature termination by the company's.

Some of the field engineers have approached the home ministry after they have been asked to leave well before their two-year contract term. RIL is said to have offered a month's pay as a goodwill to all the field engineers whose contracts were prematurely terminated.

However, these engineers are unwilling to sign the termination letters considering that Jio is yet to launch the 4G service and a lot of work is pending, according to reports.

Even as the commercial rollout date of Reliance Jio's 4G network remains unknown, a new leak says Jio Infocomm could well stun the market, offering 0.5 paisa per 10 kb of data usage, which is substantially lower than the 4 paise per 10 Kb data being charged by India's top telcos Bharti Airtel, say reports.

Reliance Jio could be all set to commercially launch its 4G services soon. While its 4G enabled SIM cards have already been shipped across Reliance Digital stores, it's not yet available for customers as the retailers await for the final nod to start selling. But that hasn't stopped leaks around its launch plans, which continue unchecked. The latest leak reveals the basic tariff plans Reliance Jio could offer, which could create problems for its rivals.

The basic tariff of Reliance Jio 4G would include local and STD calls at 2p per second, Re1 per SMS and international texts at Rs5. Mobile data would be priced at 0.5p per 10KB, which corresponds to Rs 5/MB, whereas video calls will cost 5p per second. A family and friends basic and gold plan is also available costing Rs37 and Rs38, respectively, TelecomTalk reports. The tariff plans are pretty cheap compared to existing operators, which could surely give Reliance Jio an advantage.

Reliance Jio has also got RBI licence for Jio Mobile digital wallet for mobile and utility bill payments and more. The app has recently been updated and it shows tariff plans and recharges. The Jio Mi-Fi 4G enabled devices come bundled with 40GB of data with validity of 90 days and a 200GB data pack is also available for network test, the app reveals. However, it is only available for internal testing purposes.