Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has spent more than Rs 242 crore towards advertisement of its welfare schemes in the last 10 years, said Minister of Information and Public Relations Pradip Amat on Tuesday.
In a reply to questions of MLAs Sankar Oram and Nabacharan Majhi in Assembly, the minister said the Information and Public Relations department paid Rs 242,67,64,373 to different sections of media to advertise for promoting awareness about different public welfare schemes launched by the government during the period.
Of the total amount, Rs 165.04 crore was spent for advertisement in newspapers, Rs 40.64 crore in electronic media, Rs 26.64 crore for printing and publishing the government’s public relation book ‘Aina’.
For outdoor advertisement of the schemes, the department spent Rs 3.25 crore for putting up hoardings and Rs 7.09 crore for folk arts, the minister said.
Besides, different departments of the government spent from their own budgets towards advertisement of their schemes, he added.
Refuting the allegation that the government favoured some media houses in issuing advertisement, Amat said the I&PR department made no discrimination in allocating funds on the ground of political affiliation of the media.
