Govt spent Rs 911.17 cr on advertisements over last 3 yrs

NEW DELHI, 21 Jul: The government spent Rs 911.17 crore on advertisements in newspapers, television channels and web portals in the past three years, Information & Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

The advertisements were paid for by the Central Bureau of Communications from the financial year 2019-20 till June 2022, he said.

The government spent Rs 295.05 crore on advertisements in 5,326 newspapers in 2019-20, Rs 197.49 crore in 5,210 newspapers in 2020-21, Rs 179.04 crore in 6,224 newspapers in 2021-22, and Rs 19.25 crore in 1,529 newspapers in 2022-23 (till June), Thakur said.

During the same period, the government spent Rs 98.69 crore on advertisements in 270 television (TV) channels in 2019-20, Rs 69.81 crore in 318 TV channels in 2020-21, Rs 29.3 crore in 265 news channels in 2021-22 and Rs 1.96 crore in 99 TV channels in 2022-23 (till June), Thakur said.

On web portals, the government’s spending on advertisements was Rs 9.35 crore on 54 websites in 2019-20, Rs 7.43 crore on 72 websites in 2020-21, Rs 1.83 crore on 18 websites in 2021-22 and Rs 1.97 crore on 30 websites in 2022-23 (till June 2022), the minister said in response to a question by Congress member Digvijaya Singh. (PTI)