Union I&B Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore on Thursday admitted in the parliament that the central government had spent Rs 5245.73 crore on advertisement since it assumed office in May 2014.
In the first year of assuming office, the Modi government had splashed Rs 979.78 crore on advertisement, which included Rs 424.84 crore on print (newspapers), Rs 473.67 crore on electronic and audio visual ads and Rs 81.27 crore on the outdoor publicity.
In the following year, the amount spent on advertisements increased to Rs 1160.16 crore. This included Rs 508.22 crore spent on print ads, Rs 531.60 crore splashed on electornic and audio visual and Rs 120.34 crore spent on outdoor publicity. The money spent on government ads kept increasing in the next two years with Rs 1264.26 crore and Rs 1313.57 crore being spent in 2016-17 and 2017-18 respectively.
“The schemes administered by different Ministries, Departments have an ‘Information, Education and Communication (IEC)’ component for publicity and awareness about these schemes among intended beneficiaries. Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC), under the Ministry of I&B, undertakes IEC campaigns in respect of these schemes and programmes in consultation with Ministries and Departments based on target audience, budget availability etc,” news agency ANI quoted Rathore as saying.
The Narendra Modi government had already spent Rs 527.96 crore from April till December this year.
Rathore was earlier quoted by news agency PTI that while Rs. 2,282 crore was spent on print advertisements, an expenditure of Rs.2,312.59 crore was incurred on publicity through audio-visual media, adding that Rs. 651.14 crore was spent on outdoor publicity.