Jio, Idea, Airtel Partner With Centre for COVID-19 Contact Tracing

A voice response feature in the calls will automatically alert local health authorities if action needs to be taken.

Telecom companies like Jio, Vodafone Idea, Airtel have joined hands with the government for expanding COVID-19 contract tracing in the country.

(Photo: The Quint)

The coronavirus lockdown in the country has been extended for another two weeks, till 17 May, and in an effort to expand contract tracing through the recently launched Aarogya Sethu app, the Centre is partnering with Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio to reach out to citizens whose phones don't have the feature to download the app, reported Hindustan Times.

According to the report, the Centre is working on expanding the app to nearly 550 million feature phones and an Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) will also be developed that will be fluent in all Indian languages.

The IVRS will be speaking to users to check on COVID-19 symptoms and will automatically alert local health authorities if action needs to be taken.

The government will also probably do a pan-India roll out of the IVRS to ensure that users update their health status.

Nearly 75,000 calls have been made already and Aarogya Setu is also being tested on Jio Phones, to help reach 150 million users approximately, read the report.

The total number of COVID-19 positive cases in India on Monday rose to 42,836 including 29,685 active cases, 11,762 cured/discharged/migrated patients and 1,389 deaths according to the figures released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

(with inputs from Hindustan Times)