The Quint: New Delhi: Saturday, December 09, 2017.
The Modi
government has spent a whopping nearly Rs 3,755 crore in three-and-a-half years
on its publicity till October this year, an RTI revealed on Friday, 8 December.
The
expenditure on advertisements from April 2014 to October 2017 through
electronic, print media and outdoor publicity is Rs 37,54,06,23,616, according
to the RTI reply by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.
The
application was filed by Greater Noida-based social activist Ramveer Tanwar, a
copy of which is with IANS.
According to
the information, the central government spent over Rs 1,656 crore on electronic
media advertisements, including – community radio, digital cinema, Doordarshan,
Internet, SMS and TV. For print media, the government spent more than Rs 1,698
crore.
On outdoor
advertisements, which include hoardings, posters, booklets and calendars, the
central government has spent over Rs 399 crore, the RTI reveals.
The amount
spent on publicity blitz is more than the yearly budget allocated to some key
ministries and government’s flagship programmes.
The
government’s allocation for “pollution abatement” in the last three years has
been only Rs 56.8 crore.
In 2016, an
RTI filed by Tanwar had revealed that the Centre spent over Rs 1,100 crore
between 1 June 2014 and 31 August 2016, on advertisements featuring Prime
Minister Narendra Modi.
The Ministry
gave a break up of the expenditure according to which Rs 448 crore was spent
from 1 June 2014 to 31 March 2015, and Rs 542 crore and Rs 120 crore spent from
1 April 2015 to 31 March 2016 and 1 April 2016 to 31 August 2016 respectively.
The
expenditure was only for television, Internet and other electronic media and
did not include expenditure on outdoor and print advertisements.
In 2015,
another RTI had revealed that the Centre had spent nearly Rs 8.5 crore on
newspaper advertisements for the Prime Minister's monthly radio address
"Mann Ki Baat" till July 2015.
The BJP and
Congress had criticised the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi for
spending Rs 526 crore on advertising its achievements in 2015.
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