Lok Sabha Question No. 849 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-07-23
Subject: Awareness Programme about COVID-19
Ministry: INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING
Asked by: Rita Bahuguna Joshi

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 849 (TO BE ANSWERED ON 23.07.2021)

## AWARENESS PROGRAMME ABOUT COVID-19

## 849. SHRIMATI RITA BAHUGUNA JOSHI:

## Will the Minister of INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING be pleased to state:

- a) whether  the  Government  is  making  best  possible  efforts  to  inform  and  educate people about the importance of COVID vaccines and COVID appropriate behavior;
- b) if so, the details thereof; and
- c) If not, the reasons therefor?

## ANSWER

## THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING; AND MINISTER OF YOUTH AFFAIRS AND SPORTS [SHRI ANURAG SINGH THAKUR]

- (a) to (c) Since March 2020, the Government has undertaken awareness generation on COVID-19,  appropriate  behaviour  and  vaccination.  The  Press  Information Bureau has organized over 120 press conferences and issued over 27000 press releases  in  14  languages.  Over  100  special  programmes  were  aired  on Doordarshan in various languages. Similarly, All India Radio broadcast over 6600 Public Service Messages /Announcements, Jingles for awareness generation  and  dedicated  programmes  such  as  Corona  Jagrukta  Series,  with over 405 episodes of Live Public Phone-in programmes. The pre caller tune on Mobile phones was also deployed to encourage vaccination and observance of covid appropriate behaviour.

The Government also took extensive outdoor and interpersonal communication along with a special Jan Andolan campaign in October, 2020 with  active  participation  of  Frontline  Workers,  Anganwadis,  and  Panchayati Raj institutions, along with several institutions and bodies of the Central and State Governments, under the overall campaign theme of #Unite2FightCorona, with emphasis on COVID-19 appropriate behaviour.

In  its  entire  effort  the  Central  Government  continuously  interacted  and collaborated with the State Governments. This was supplemented by collaboration  with  private  media,  TV  channels,  private  FM  and  Community radio stations. Extensive publicity was given to the various National helpline numbers  for  COVID,  for  children,  for  elderly  people  and  for  psychological support.

The Ministry of I&B also undertook extensive publicity following the vaccine roll-out in January, 2021 and special outreach activities were launched during TikaUtsav in April, 2021 and national vaccination drive on 21st June, 2021.

In the realm of social media the Ministry developed a dedicated Twitter handle @COVIDNewsByMIB,  having  over  2.4  lakh  followers  in  which  around 29,000  tweets  were  posted.  MyGov  has  also  engaged  citizens  in  creating awareness  through  a  dedicated  page  on  COVID-19  on  its  Website  (over  10 Crore page views till 19 July, 2021), a Corona Helpdesk on Telegram mobile app (18.37 Lakh users), a dedicated Facebook hub (13.32 lakh followers), and an automated WhatsApp  Chatbot CORONA  Helpdesk  which  provides automatic answers to queries (4 Crore users). Ministry of Health and Family Welfare  has  posted  more  than  4000  tweets,  60  YouTube  videos  and  2000 Facebook posts on COVID-19.

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