For the current financial year, the budget has further gone up by Rs 27 crore to Rs 182 crore in the year 2018-19
Ahead of a number of states going to hustings in the year 2018, Government’s budget for public information dissemination and publicity has seen an upward trend.
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s budget for publicity has significantly gone up in the last two years. From mere Rs 3 crore in the year 2016-17, the budget went upto Rs 155 crore this year. It was revised from the earlier allocation of Rs 140 crore earmarked for the year 2017-18.
For the current financial year, the budget has further gone up by Rs 27 crore to Rs 182 crore in the year 2018-19.
Four states including Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Goa and Punjab went to polls last year while in 2018, a clutch of states like Tripura, Rajasthan, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Madhya Pradesh go to polls.
A huge section of the budget for publicity money is allocated to spreading information on government activities in remote parts of the country. The government’s information dissemination unit - Public Information Bureau (PIB) was also expanded for the purpose and regional centres have been formed to cater to east, northeast, south, west and centre in order to disseminate information to far away centres.
Under the information head, maximum increase in budget is for people empowerment through development communication for educating the masses about policies and programmes of the government, media outreach programme and publicity for special events through Press Information Bureau (PIB) for increasing awareness about development programme at grassroot level through public information campaign.
Direct contact programme, special outreach programmes on flagship schemes of government of India through field publicity is also a part of government’s agenda.
Other schemes that are under the plan are having live arts and culture (song and drama division) — the scope of the scheme is to give greater reach access and impact in its efforts to communicate at the grassroot level including inaccesible hilly terrain, desert and affected areas and border areas.
Building perception on social media platform for perception on behalf of the government will also be done.
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