Mumbai: The State government’s plan to run a special publicity campaign worth ₹26 crore for the Assembly elections in 2019 has drawn the Opposition’s ire, which called it wasteful expenditure. Its leaders are alleging that the campaign is an attempt by the government to hide its own failures, rather than publicise schemes and works. The advertising campaign was announced on Friday.
The government said the campaign is for informing the public of work being done by the State government, and create awareness of special projects and schemes. The campaign includes the use of drones and state-of-the-art cameras to transfer images from government events and programmes. ₹10 crore is expected to be spent on vans carrying TV screens displaying government programmes and jingles, ₹3 crore on social media campaigns, ₹6 crore on advertising on radio and in newspapers, and ₹2.8 crore on advertising across various platforms in rural areas. The total expenditure is ₹26.33 crore for 2017-18.
This is not the first time the government’s publicity spend has come under attack. In the last Assembly session, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had said money spent on publicity by previous governments was much more. “It’s not only this government’s prerogative to inform people of its work, but it makes sense that citizens know about schemes to take advantage of them.”
Recently, the Opposition had criticised the expenditure on Mr. Fadnavis’s popular TV show Mi Mukhyamantri Bolto . Nawab Malik, senior NCP leader, said, “It is alright if the government publicises schemes, like we did during our rule, but this government is wasting money to hide its failure. They are diverting money from various departments for this work, and using private agencies.”
