For anyone reading this comment who is outside India. We never had anything called activation charges until very recently. People like the commenter above get a sim and not use it for months without paying anything and the provider had to make sure the number was ON. This became such a plague a provider went down under. Now all the providers came together and decided on a way to stop this from happening. As expected, there is an outrage.
> they give steep discounts to hook you in and then they jack up prices after destroying competition
You bough a Docomo sim. You have a jio sim now too. You don't get to talk about this. Don't be a hypocrite.
> but can you really buy a topup any more only for calling?
Yes. That is literally what I do for my other phone.
https://www.jio.com/jio-top-up-recharge-plans
Do you see where it says "top up". Click that thingy and follow the instructions.
> Just one year ago we had 45rs recharge to keep phone active now it's gone up to 99Rs starting tomorrow.
If you're the kind of person who'd recharge for 100 rs and keep it for 6 months and expect top notch service, I hope they jack up the prices for activation to 1000 rs so they drive bad consumers like you out of the market so the rest of us can use the services as intended.