India to roll out Aarogya Setu app for Reliance’s JioPhone in bid to widen use

NEW DELHI : India will within days roll out a version of its coronavirus contact-tracing application that can run on mobile carrier Reliance Jio’s cheap phones, as it looks to increase the reach of the system, a senior government official said on Thursday.

India, which has imposed the world’s biggest shutdown to battle the spread of the coronavirus, last month launched the Aarogya Setu (Health Bridge) app — a Bluetooth and GPS-based application which alerts users who may have come in contact with people who later test positive for covid-19.

The app, which has been downloaded more than 83 million times so far, was initially available to India’s roughly 500 million smartphone users on Google’s Android and Apple devices, but not to around 400 million users of more basic feature phones.