Caller tunes as voter awareness

CHENNAI: After holding rallies, streetplays, exhibitions and football matches to raise awareness on voting, it is now the cellphone’s caller tune which is the latest strategy of the city corporation to spread the spirit of voting.

More than 1,500 corporation officials and staff have adopted a signature tune in their BSNL cell numbers to create awareness on the need to vote. As soon as one calls any of these numbers, the song Vaaku alipadhu undhan kadamai (voting is your right) starts to play instead of the usual ring tones.

“Instead of the usual song ‘When you have the way’, which is set for all corporation staff by default, our phones have adopted a new song. I became aware of this when a few of my friends asked me about it,” said a corporation staff.

BSNL has given the tune free of cost to the civic body. “The signature tune is set for all civic staff, irrespective of their designation,” said corporation commissioner and district election officer Vikram Kapur.

“Everyone from field engineers to top officials have adopted this song in their official CUG numbers to spread the word about voting,” he added.

According to a BSNL spokesperson, the caller tunes were set on request from the corporation’s top officials. “The tunes will be provided till the elections are over,” the spokesperson added.

“I have a BSNL number. I wish I could change my caller tune to a similar one,” says G. Aakash, a first-year college student.