It seems telecom operators are seeing an opportunity in everything including your prayers to God. We have covered live online prayer sites previously on WATBlog but now Airtel has taken the same concept and brought it to you on your mobile phone.
Airtel has launched Live Aarti which can be accessed via a simple call from their Airtel mobiles. Airtel has brought to its offering live Pujas and Aartis from Tirupati Balaji, Sidhi Vinayak, Shirdi Sai Baba and Bangla Sahib. One needs to call 55200 for Tirupati Balaji and Sidhi Vinayak, 55205 for Bangla Sahib and 55222 for Shirdi Sai Baba.
Quite a noble initiative one may think. But even Gods come at a price and that to at a one-time membership fee of Rs. 5 with daily subscription fee of Rs. 2 per shrine (thats cheap huh for reaching out to God what say? pun intended!)
Also the above shrines are just the beginning soon they plan to add Golden Temple, Vaishno Devi, Kashi Vishawanath, Har Ki Podi, Nathdwara, Patna Sahib Gurudwara, and Puri Jagannath.
Why this will work in India?
I dont believe in Prayer though I believe that god is within all of us. But what I believe doesn’t matter as Im an exception to the rule. With 500 milion mobile phones and 100 milion + among them with airtel this new service does seem like a god send vardan (if i may say so) for the VAS cash registers to start ringing. Online aarti’s have been around for sometime and with a validated business model.
Who knows this might be the next big thing after caller ring back tone. After all many people have aarti’s as their caller tone as well.
if it is something innovative and interesting, it has to be from airtel. like their new prepaid card – airtel world sim – allows you to receive calls on your india number even when you are abroad in over 150 countries. Check http://www.airtel.in/worldsim