“I will not step outside the house at all. I have heard, that helicopters are going to spray some medicine in the air and it will cause me to catch the virus,” said Dilip, a farmer in Kera village of Gujarat.
“I have heard, even talking on the phone for a long time can get us infected with the virus,” said Ganpath, a shop owner in Pali, Rajasthan.
Such fake news are rampant in rural India, causing panic among the citizens. Especially among the people who are not avid internet users or tech-savvy. It is important for them to stay well informed about myths and truths regarding the pandemic so that they can take necessary precautions to protect themselves.
For the benefit of this sizable population, Radio Pitaara, an exclusive Mobile-based content platform for Rural India is all set to launch “M-I-L Kar Ladengey” campaign. This campaign is an initiative to provide Corona centric, important news to the rural population of India. The audience who is currently not connected through the Internet is left out and still dependent upon traditional means of communication like outreach, wall painting, Offline etc. There are almost 45% users who still use basic feature phone with no internet connectivity and relevant information around COVID-19 has to be taken to them. With this campaign, Radio Pitaara intends to reach out to such people with Corona centric communication and help in containing the spread of this pandemic.
Commenting on the initiative, Mr Gaurav Dikshit, Co-Founder of Radio Pitaara said, “COVID-19 is a pandemic and it needs to be contained, immediately. While lockdown is effective, there is still very much requirement of informative and relevant content for rural audiences. Through Radio Pitaara, we aim to provide all the genuine information to the underprivileged people of rural India. I am positive that ‘M-I-L Kar Ladengey’ will reach out to a large segment of non-internet audience with informative content.”
Rural India, which is largely dependent upon farming and allied services, needs more attention towards the pandemic issues. These services are kind of cohesive and require a lot of congregation of people at one place, which states that the chances of the spread of the virus could be higher. There are almost 45% of users who still use basic feature phone with no internet connectivity, such audiences are completely left out from the daily happenings and current affairs. On the other hand, the smart phone users of rural India are struggling with the apt content requirement. It gets difficult for them to differentiate between genuine and fake news on a daily basis. The campaign idea has been crafted effectively and very powering, keeping in mind the audiences.
Radio Pitaara has come forward to help the community by spreading the most important and useful information on a simple missed-call based solution. Anyone can dial in their centralized call-in number 1800-12000-13 from any feature phone/ smartphone/ landline and listen to the rural-specific informative content.
