SHILLONG: Information and Public Relation Minister, A L Hek cited fund constraints as the reason for the inability for the Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) to clear advertisement bills in totality and every year as it keeps accumulating.
Replying to a cut motion, he said that in the last quarter of this financial year, Rs 7, 31, 000 was paid to the media houses and Rs 42, 77, 609 is the amount pending to be paid to the media houses till August 2018 which will be met through the supplementary demand.
“Many pending advertisement bills are also lying with other departments and efforts are made by them to clear the Bills from time to time,” he added.
Advertisement Policy
Hek informed that the DIPR had prepared a draft revised and comprehensive advertisement policy and same was submitted to the government on June 26, 2016 for examination and approval.
“The draft Advertisement Policy is inclusive and covers all media including print media, i.e. newspapers, magazine and electronic media like television, online media and radio,” he said.
He also said that the as per draft advertisement policy it would be made mandatory for all the government departments to ensure that all advertisements are routed through the DIPR except on emergency/urgent situations where concerned department can issue the advertisement directly to the media houses with intimation to the DIPR.
“It may be mentioned that equal distribution of advertisements to the media houses is maintained as far as practicable,” Hek said.
Media Society
Hek informed that the department is in the process of preparing the modalities of the Media Society. “The main objective of the Society is to handle funds of various departments meant for advertisement, plan media campaigns for government programmes, to formulate policies and procedures for all media related issues,” he said.
Stating that the task of constituting the Media Society is vast, the department is working on the modalities and the financial implications after which a detailed proposal will be made to the government for fund allotment.