Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation start caller tunes for voters

PUNE: The

Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation

(PCMC) has decided to start a unique caller tune campaign to boost voting percentage.

Citizens can now opt to have a specially prepared song as a caller tune on their numbers. The 40-second jingle is available in English, Hindi and Marathi.

Dinesh Waghmare, the municipal commissioner of PCMC, told TOI, “We hope it will motivate people to vote in the municipal polls on February 21 and help in increasing the voting percentage. Earlier, we had organized a two-day youth festival for college students in Akurdi, wherein street plays, collage-making, elocution and other competitions based on voter awareness were held.”

Waghmare said, “PCMC can provide the caller tune free to people, but they will have to pay a monthly charge of Rs 40 to the telecom service provider to use it.”

Anna Bodade, assistant commissioner, PCMC, said, “Pimpri Chinchwad is an industrial metropolitan city. People from various states have migrated here to work. Hence, we created the caller tune in three languages. It has been prepared in rap music style in English to appeal to the English speaking voters. ‘Powada’ style has been employed to entice Marathi speaking voters, while the Hindi version is in ‘Bhojpuri’ style to attract the large number of industrial workers in the city that have come from the states of Uttar Pardesh, Bihar and other north Indian states.”

“We contacted the singers and music team of the popular Marathi film ‘Court’ for preparing the caller tunes.

Lokshahir Sambhaji Bhagat

and his team prepared a 3.15 minute audio clip in the three languages. Since a mobile number can support a caller tune of a maximum of 40 seconds, we cut it into three parts to have separate tunes for each language. When citizens call civic officials on their mobile phones, they will be able to hear these tunes like the usual tunes they hear when they call their acquaintances,” said Bodade. A civic official said, “A total of 434 officials have these ringtones.”