Indian
Express: Mumbai: Monday, 25 January 2016.
The BHARATIYA
Janata Party (BJP)-led Maharashtra government has spent Rs 6.61 crore on
advertising between April and December 2015, about 50 per cent more than what
the erstwhile Congress-NCP government spent in three fiscal years.
According to
data obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by The Indian Express,
the BJP-Shiv Sena government has spent Rs 6,60,75,013 as advertising expenses
till December 21 this financial year.
The
Congress-NCP government spent Rs 4.25 crore in three full fiscal years from
2011 to 2014.
In 2011-12,
during the early days of the Congress-NCP’s third term in the government, the
state spent Rs 71.01 lakh on advertising, nearly nine times less than the
BJP-led government’s expenditure in 2015-16 till December.
With Lok
Sabha and state assembly elections scheduled in 2014, the Congress-NCP
government’s expenditure also inched up in the next two years, but was still
about three times lower than the BJP government’s 2015-16 advertising spend. In
2012-13 and 2013-14, the Congress-NCP government spent Rs 1.48 crore and Rs
2.05 crore, respectively, as per data obtained from the state’s publicity
division.
In 2014-15,
the government spent Rs 1.27 crore with the Congress-NCP at the helm for the
first seven months from April to October, the BJP alone in November, and the
BJP and Shiv Sena in coalition from December 2014 to March 2015.
Shailesh
Gandhi, former chief information commissioner, said, “The BJP-led government’s
2015-16 spending on advertising until now is clearly disproportionate. Any government’s
advertising expenditure is 99 per cent through the political party that is in
power. If they want to spend on publicity, they should do it from their own
party funds and not public money.”
The Devendra
Fadnavis-government spent Rs 3,28,50,422 , which is nearly half of the total Rs
6.61 crore that it has spent on advertising till December to mark its one year
completion in the government.
This despite
the government having decided to keep the celebration muted following severe
drought in several parts of the state and a strain on the state’s coffers.
The chief
minister had even said that there will be no celebration, but only effective
communication with the people of the state to mark his government’s first year
in office.
Finance
Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said the expenditure should not be seen as
advertising and should instead be looked at as the cost incurred on
establishing a dialogue with the public.
“Simply
having good schemes for the public welfare and keeping the information within
the four walls of Mantralaya is of no use. We need to disseminate this
information to people and create awareness about the various government
schemes. Public dialogue and education is very important in any democracy.”
Congress’
Prithviraj Chavan, former chief minister, said the BJP government has only
relied on creating hype through publicity and sloganeering rather than tangible
achievements through actual work.
“If the
expenditure on advertising is Rs 6.6 crore till December, going by this rate,
by the end of the fiscal year it will easily reach about Rs 8-8.5 crore. We all
knew that the BJP government both at the Centre and in Maharashtra is doing
nothing but re-branding old schemes of the Congress-NCP government and to do
that one has to spend a lot of money. Simply creating hype is not going to get
this government very far though.”
Chavan also
said that the figure reflects only what the state government has spent directly
on advertising through its coffers.
“A lot of
advertising expenses are hidden. The government must have spent a lot more
through its corporations and agencies such as the Maharashtra Tourism
Development Corporation and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development
Authority,” the former chief minister added.
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