New Delhi, Aug. 24: AirTel today joined the battle with Reliance by slashing the tariff on its pre-paid service by 60 per cent for calls made on its network and 30 per cent on calls to other networks.

Last week, Reliance Infocomm had cut its pre-paid tariffs to offer call rates at 99 paise per minute across the country for those made from Reliance India Mobile (RIM) to another RIM phone.

Sources at Hutch and Idea said the companies would soon announce similar cuts in their pre-paid tariff plans that will have more value addition loaded on.

The new AirTel rates will come into effect between Wednesday and Thursday across all telecom circles. In Calcutta, the revised rates will be effective on new connections from August 27 and on existing connections from August 31. AirTel executives said it would benefit more than 8 million AirTel mobile customers across the country.

Under the rate structure, a local call made by a pre-paid AirTel customer to any other AirTel mobile anywhere in the country will cost Re 1 per minute, while it will be Rs 2.25 per minute for calls made to other operators’ mobile numbers like Hutch or Idea.

This is a reduction of more than 60 per cent for the AirTel subscriber calling another AirTel customer and 30 per cent for calling other operators. The new tariffs will be applicable to both new and existing customers on payment of a nominal one-time plan entry charge of Rs 50.

As a special introductory offer, this charge is being waived for new customers till September 30.

This rate is even lower than the STD calls made from a fixed-line phone. A land-line to land-line STD call costs Rs 2.40 for a distance of less than 200 kms and Rs 3.60 beyond 200 kms.

Further, local calls to fixed line and to any other mobile phone have been reduced by 25 per cent.