Major telecom operators in the county are set to push up their revenue by launching new initiatives and adding new value-added services (VAS) for their customers during the forthcoming festive season. Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications (RCom) and Tata Teleservices Ltd will offer festival-specific products, value-added services, contests and plan to undertake key branding and marketing initiatives for the festive season.

For the Ganesh festival, one of the biggest festivals in Maharashtra, Airtel will be tying up with key Ganesh Mandals in Mumbai and Pune. The company will also launch Ganesh special content like Ganesh ring tones, recipes, songs, shlokas and bhajans on the Assal Marathi voice portal. Airtel will also offer contests, prizes and festive offers to their customers.

A Bharti Airtel spokesperson said, ?The festive season is a good time for us to participate and extend support to our customers, to make these occasions special for one and all. It is an opportune period that helps us to establish a local connect through our customised value offerings and branding initiatives.?

Airtel will also offer the ?Mobile Pundit Service? during the 11 days of the Ganesh festival, where users can hear pre-recorded Ganesh pujas recited by a pundit on the mobile. Likewise, an SMS will also be sent to the subscribers of this service informing them on the basic requirements for performing a Ganesh puja.

Mahesh Prasad, president-applications, solutions and content group, RCom, said, ?On the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, we are offering our customers a number of applications on the Reliance Mobile World. They can download ring tones, wallpapers, animations and can take part in an exciting contest.? However, he refused to divulge plans for other festivals.

Similarly, Tata Teleservices has unveiled a mobile web browser, fully optimised for mobile Internet, in association with Samsung Telecommunications India on the ?Samsung Explore? handset priced at Rs 5,499. The company claims that this browser is designed to provide mobile users a true web experience at speed 3-4 times faster than GPRS, with access to all websites.

Airtel is also launching various initiatives in Kolkata to coincide with Durga Puja.