Advertisement extravaganza: Govt spends Rs 49 bn on publicity in last 4 yrs

This amount is double the sum spent by the government's predecessor in 37 months: The Congress-led UPA govt spent Rs20.48 bn between March 2011 and March 2014

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government spent Rs48.8 billion on advertising its flagship schemes in the 52 months between April 2014 and July 2018, according to the information made available to the Rajya Sabha by Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Information and Broadcasting.

This amount is double the sum spent by the government’s predecessor in 37 months: The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government spent Rs 20.48 billion between March 2011 and March 2014, according to a Right To Information (RTI) query filed by activist Anil Galgali in 2014.
 

 Of the Rs48.8 billion the NDA spent on publicity, Rs 2.92 billion (7.81 per cent) went to advertising four public schemes in three years — the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana for crop insurance, the Swachh Bharat Mission  for a nationwide cleanliness campaign, the Smart City Mission, and the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana for urban and rural development.

The money could have paid for midday meals for 45.7 million children for a year; one day’s wages for 200 million workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS), for the construction of about 6 million new latrines or at least 10 more Mars missions.
 

The government expenditure on advertisements rose 34 per cent from Rs 9.8 billion in 2014-15 to Rs 13.14 billion in 2017-18.