Airtel to pay April salaries of 25,000 staff to support distributors, retail franchises

NEW DELHI: Telecom operator Bharti Airtel will pay the basic income for the April month to nearly 25,000 employees of its distribution partners and retail franchise network in the country.

“We are acutely sensitive that this sudden lockdown has also reduced your operations and returns during April. In order to help you tide over this tough time, we plan to extend a onetime support for the month of April,” Vani Venkatesh CEO - Delhi/NCR said in letter addressed to distribution partners in the circle.

All circle chief executives are writing similar letters to their respective distributors, a person familiar with the matter said.


"This is done with an endeavour to ensure that your FSE (field service executive) and other frontline colleagues get their basic income,” Venkatesh said.

Airtel is seeing a sharp drop in its business due to the ongoing lockdown, Airtel said in the letter.
“This disruption has impacted many categories sharply. In a way we are fortunate that we are associated with an industry that helps keep the ‘lights on’ – thereby, keeping the country connected and people in touch with their loved ones,” Venkatesh said in the letter seen by ET Telecom.

Airtel has recently covered all FSEs under the Covid-19 medical insurance program “as a gesture of our gratitude towards this force,” Venkatesh said. “We are absolutely confident that once the lockdown is over by 3rd May, we will spring back and win in the market place.”

Airtel said that it ran successful programs such as Airtel Child Scholarship, Airtel ki Ladli (Daughter’s thanks program), Anmol Ratna and Yuva Ratna for its distributors and franchise partners and their FSEs.

Bharti Airtel had last week extended the validity of 30 million low-income prepaid customers till May 3. These customers will now be able to receive incoming calls on their Airtel mobile numbers even after the validity of their plan is exhausted.