After rolling out initiatives for helping employees and partners fight the Covid-19 battle, India Inc is now launching offers for their customers. This includes extended warranties on products, free car servicing, mobile talktime, and health insurance.
Mahindra & Mahindra’s farm equipment unit, for example, has rolled out ‘M–Protect Covid Plan’ to support Indian farmers. Under this plan, Mahindra will provide customers a health cover of ₹1 lakh, pre-approved loans to support medical expenses incurred during Covid-19 treatment, and insuring a customers’ loan under ‘Mahindra Loan Suraksha’ in case of loss of life. The M-Protect Covid Plan will be available on Mahindra’s entire range of tractors purchased in May 2021.
Shubhabrata Saha – Chief Executive Officer, Farm Division, M&M Ltd. said, “May and June are important months for the livelihood of the farming community and Covid-19 has brought in several challenges. Our new M-Protect Covid Plan is intended to ease farmers’ worries as we support them in these crucial farming-related months. Through M-Protect we will offer health, financial and insurance-related protection to bring relief to the farmers.”
Similarly, Airtel has announced a ₹270 crore project to help 55 million low-income customers. Airtel will give the ₹49 pack free of cost to over low-income customers. The pack offers a talktime of ₹38 and 100 MB data with a validity of 28 days. Reliance Jio is giving 300 free minutes of outgoing calls per month (10 minutes per day) for the entire period of the pandemic, to JioPhone users who have not been able to recharge due to the ongoing pandemic.
Auto segment
In the auto segment, Tata Motors, announced that the customers whose warranty and free service period are due to expire between April 1 and May 31, will be extended till June 30.
Dimple Mehta, Head – Customer Care (Domestic & IB), PVBU, Tata Motors, “The Covid-19 upsurge has led to restrictions on movements, and customers across the country are unable to bring or send their vehicles to our authorized service centres for scheduled maintenance or repairs. Hence a challenge when warranty and free service periods as per policy norms get expired during the on-going lockdown.”
Shriram Housing Finance Limited is providing vaccination free of cost to all its customers. Ravi Subramanian, MD & CEO, Shriram Housing Finance said, “Customers in the affordable housing space are not very well off and for them, even the small sum to be incurred in vaccination through private players can become a big deterrent. This in turn can derail the vaccination drive. We believe that this initiative will take out the dissonance and enable customers to take affordability out of the equation when they make the vaccination decision. “