How to keep your Indian mobile number active while living abroad? – Prasanth Ragupathy (2024)

One of the most common questions asked by the NRI community is about their Indian mobile numbers.We often ask these qustions,

• How to keep my Indian number active outside India?.
• Will i receive calls, SMS, OTP, etc from India?.
• Should i recharge regularly?.
• Should i activate International roaming package?

So, the following article explores this topic in detail and addresses a few basic questions. For simplicity, i have only explored the prepaid option.

Table of Contents

1. Airtel
2. Jio
3. VI (Vodafone Idea)
4. FAQ
5. More Information

Personally, I have an Airtel prepaid number for receiving OTPs abroad and for daily communication during my trips to India. So, I used to recharge it with cheapest monthly package but only once every 80-85 days. This kept the number active for so many years, without buying any annual packages or international roaming service.

However, this jugaad has some issues, such as

• The number can get deactivated anytime, due to insufficient balance.
• Incoming/outgoing services will stop after the expiry date.
• The monthly recharge amounts kept increasing and the total value is either same as the annual recharge or even more.

This made me to search for some reliable options and i have explained them below. They are one of the cheap and best options available.

1. Airtel

1.1. Monthly Recharge

• The last monthly recharge that i had used was the Rs. 148 package with 28 days validity.
• So, I had to recharge every month and this can be cumbersome.
• The validity was for 28 days only and does not cover the entire month.
• This means that we have to do 13 monthly recharges per year and we will end up paying more than the yearly recharge package. I haven’t really understood why they do it but it is clearly another way of earning more revenue for them.

1.2. Yearly Recharge (recommended)

• To keep it simple and avoid all the problems mentioned above, I chose to do an annual recharge for Rs. 1799 with 365 days validity.
• This assures the incoming/outgoing services during the entire year.
• Do not have to worry about our number getting deactivated.

1.3. Optional

• How to activate International Roaming for Airtel Prepaid and Postpaid SIM?
• I have not subscribed to any International Roaming package, even though it is recommended by Airtel.
• You can add it and avoid any roaming issues. But, it will cost another Rs. 3000 approximately.

2. Jio

• Like Airtel, it is highly recommended to use the annual plans from Jio. For example the Rs.2999 plan with 365 days validity.
• The yearly validity plans are more expensive then Airtel. However, it comes bundled with a lot more data and other value added services like Hotstar, SonyLiv, etc.
• You have to activate the International Roaming (IR) option via the MyJio App. It will be activated in a few minutes and it does not cost anything.
• A reader named Rahul Sharma shared this useful information, when he stopped receving the OTPs on his mobile number. The customer support insisted him to activate the IR. However, he did not pay anything extra, as it was only IR activation for the mobile connection.
• He did not subscribe for any specific IR plans, even though they were trying hard to sell them.

3. VI (Vodafone Idea)

• You can find similar anuual plans wtih VI too. For example the Rs.1799 plan with 365 days validity.
• However, i do not have any personal experiences to share about these plans.
• If you are a VI user, please share your own experiences in the comments. This will be really helpful to other readers.

4. FAQ

A few questions from the Indian community in France.

1. Are you able to receive OTP messages in France with this yearly package?
   Ans: Yes, I receive all the OTPs from India.
2. Do we need to activate IR for annual ? Or first 28 days validity is enough for entire year ? And what is the best option like with wifi or without wifi. I just need to get OTPs. Ans: You can do the yearly recharge mentioned earlier.
3. If you take the annual recharge, do you have to use the number regularly or just the recharge will suffice? What about International Roaming?. Ans: I do a one-time recharge for the year. This keeps the number active and i receive OTPs too. Only during my trips to India, i use the internet and calls. International roaming isn’t mandatory for Airtel but a must for Jio.

5. More Information

• Airtel prepaid recharge packs
• Jio prepaid plans
• Jio International services
• VI prepaid plans