Senior AAP leader Atishi on Wednesday claimed that the caller tune asking citizens to get vaccinated has been removed by the Centre due to the shortage of vaccines in the country.
“The caller tune asking all citizens to come forward and get vaccinated, has been removed from all phone networks! So basically the Central Govt has accepted that there are not enough vaccines for everyone and so there is no point in encouraging people for vaccination!,” she tweeted.
The caller tune till recently was being played before each call across all networks. These have now become less frequent and only some users are still getting the tune before the call connects.
The Central government has been using the caller tune feature since the beginning of the pandemic as means to create awareness among the public.
The Department of Telecom, on a request from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, had in March 2020, ordered all telecom firms to make a 30-second audio clip on coronavirus as a caller tune of mobile phone users.
The earlier audio clips, voiced by actor Amitabh Bacchan, asked the public to follow COVID-19-appropriate behaviours such as masking up and maintaining physical distance. The latest caller tune was focused on the inoculation drive and asked people to get vaccinated, while assuring them that the vaccines are safe. It further advised that people should continue to follow COVID-19-appropriate behaviours even after taking the vaccine.
