Airtel, Handygo launch new service to improve life in rural Rajasthan

• Powered by Handygo, ‘Behtar Zindagi’ is a unique IVR-based service that will allow farming and allied communities to access a wide variety of relevant and useful information (including market prices, agricultural & cropping advisory, livestock advisory, weather and finance etc) through the Airtel network – anytime, anywhere!
• To educate and sensitize villager on ‘Behtar Zindagi’, Airtel and Handygo will be conducting a mass awareness drive through mobile vans that will reach out to customers of 9000 gram Panchayats across 30000 villagers in the state

Bharti Airtel, a leading integrated telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today announced that it has joined hands with leading Value Added Services (VAS) provider Handygo Technologies Pvt. Ltd to launch ‘Behtar Zindagi’ - a unique mobile based service for farming and allied communities across Rajasthan. This innovative service will empower Airtel mobile customers (specifically across rural parts of the state) with the ability to use their mobile phones to receive comprehensive information and updates on a wide range of relevant topics including weather updates, mandi rates, live stocks, agriculture, fisheries, health, education and finance. The ‘Behtar Zindagi’ service will leverage the simple and easy-to-use Interactive Voice Response (IVR) medium to communicate key information to subscribers, thus allowing them to leverage their mobile phones to plan their businesses and lead better lives.

Announcing the launch, Mr. Sudipto Chowdhury, CEO - Rajasthan, Bharti Airtel said, “With over 1.45 crore mobile customers - Bharti Airtel has the widest reach across Rajasthan, a large part of which comes from the rural parts of the state. Given this, we are well positioned to drive the role of the mobile platform as a key enabler and enricher of lives. The launch of ‘Behtar Zindagi’ is in line with Airtel’s continued efforts towards launching services that are innovative, relevant and affordable for our customers. Backed by the technology and content expertise of Handygo, we are confident that this unique service will deliver valuable insights for farming and allied communities across Rajasthan – thus furthering our ongoing efforts towards empowering the masses and enabling financial inclusion.”

Announcing the association, Mr. Praveen Rajpal, CEO, Handygo Technologies, said, “At Handygo we want to empower the rural segment through partnership with government organizations and NGOs helping them to reap the benefits of mobile telephony reducing the dependency of rural masses on agents for most basic information related to Agriculture, Commodity Prices, and Weather Forecast, Information on Inland Fisheries, Livestock, Health, Rural Finance and Education. Behtar Zindagi is a strong tool which has and will revolutionize both the generation and the delivery of information anytime anywhere. We are delighted to work with Airtel to deliver end-to-end solutions. We intend to leverage Behtar Zindagi in the field of m-banking, m-education, m-governance and others as well.”

To educate and sensitize Gram Panchayats on ‘Behtar Zindagi’, Airtel and Handygo experts will be conducting a mass awareness drive including mobile vans that will reach out to potential customers all across the state. These sessions will be aimed at educating potential customers on the service’s usage and scope towards enhancement of their yield, production etc. The service will be promoted at various touch points including agricultural & rural fairs, farmer’s exhibitions, van promotions, contests, associations with local NGOs, announcements through community radio, distribution of free physical coupons etc.

The ‘Behtar Zindagi’ service is available for farmers 24x7 and 365 days of the year. To use this service, Airtel mobile customers can dial 556780 (toll free) and avail the subscription pack at a charges as low as Rs 1/day. As a first-of-its-kind in the Indian telecom industry, this service supports a wide range of dialects and is available in Hindi and 17 other regional languages.

‘Behtar Zindagi’ has been developed after a detailed research around the farming community and keeps in mind the information gap that currently exists in this segment. To launch this initiative, Airtel joined hands with Handygo to bridge the gap between static and dynamic information. To ensure A-grade quality information, Handygo has worked with various private and government bodies (including Indian Meteorological Dept, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, CARE, CAB International and International tractors Ltd) to collate relevant information and organize its dissemination to farmers using region interactive voice as medium supported by voice and text messages.