Virgin Mobile comes to Maharstra: Local calls at 20p/min and 40p/min; Rs 69 will get you 500 SMSes a day

As part of their plan to bring GSM services to all of India within this financial year, Virgin Mobile has expanded their GSM services to Maharashtra.

Virgin offers incredibly low calling rates, with a mere 20 paise per minute for local and STD calls to other Virgin Mobile numbers, and a 40 paise per minute for local calls to numbers other than Virgin Mobile. STD calls to non-Virgin Mobile numbers will be at a low rate of 50 paise per minute. The operator will only be offering prepaid plans for subscribers.

Targeting the urban youth, Virgin Mobile also offers cheap SMS packs. A Rs. 33 SMS pack, valid for a month will give you 2000 free SMS messages local or national, while the Rs. 69 SMS pack entitles you to a whopping 15000 SMS messages in a month, with 500 free messages a day. Enough to message a dictionary in about a month!

While Virgin offers services over TATA's infrastructure, which has its own Docomo GSM service, it claims that their service is more targeted towards youth, and as such features call rates, and services (such as social networking) which match their needs. Over the coming six months, Virgin Mobile will be spending as much as Rs. 500 crore in promotions activities.