Govt. spent ₹ 911.17 on ads in last 3 years: I&B minister
text_fields
Union Sports minister Anurag Thakur/ File Photo
New Delhi: Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that the government spent ₹ 911.17 crores on advertisements in newspapers, television channels and web portals in the last three years, PTI reported.
Responding to a question by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, the minister said that the Central Bureau of Communications paid for the advertisements during 2019-20 to June 2022.
He briefed that the government spent ₹ 295.05 crore on advertisements in 5,326 newspapers in 2019-20, ₹ 197.49 crore in 5,210 newspapers in 2020-21, ₹ 179.04 crore in 6,224 newspapers in 2021-22 and ₹ 19.25 crore in 1,529 newspapers in 2022-23 (till June).
In the same period, the government spent ₹ 98.69 crores on advertisements in 270 television (TV) channels in 2019-20, ₹ 69.81 crores on 318 TV channels in 2020-21, ₹ 29.3 crores on 265 news channels in 2021-22 and ₹ 1.96 crores in 99 TV channels in 2022-23 (till June), the minister said.
Finally, on web portals, the government's spending was ₹ 9.35 crore on 54 websites in 2019-20, ₹ 7.43 crore on 72 websites in 2020-21, ₹ 1.83 crores on 18 websites in 2021-22 and ₹ 1.97 crores on 30 websites in 2022-23 (till June 2022).