The number of newspapers to whom advertisements were issued by Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC) ranged between 3,500 and 5,800 during the last five years. The amount of advertisement given to newspapers by the Central Government varies across years, depending upon the various priorities, requirements and other aspects of Government advertisement and ranged between Rs. 190 crore to Rs. 625 crores during the last five years, said I&B Minister Anurag Thakur in a written reply to the question of Lok Sabha Member Naba Hira Kumar Sarania during the Lok Sabha sessions,
“Advertisements are released to empanelled newspapers in accordance with the Print Media Advertisement Policy, 2020. At present 7,256 publications including periodicals are empanelled with BOC. As on 24.03.2022, 120 newspapers belonging to North Eastern States are empanelled with BOC,” he added.
The BOC, under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, undertakes Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaigns through various media platforms for broadcasting information about various policies, schemes, programmes and initiatives of the Government. It releases advertisements to the publications from amongst those empanelled, keeping in view the campaign requirement, available budget, target readership and area and preferences indicated by client departments and as per Print Media Advertisement Policy, 2020.
The overall spends of government advertising in print media for the last five years was around Rs 1654.57 crore. Detailed figures show, Rs 96.39 crore was spent on ads in 5608 newspapers in 2021-22 (till date), Rs 197.49 crore in 5211 newspapers in 2020-21, Rs 295.05 crore was spent on ads in 5326 newspapers in 2019-20, Rs 429.55 crore was spend on ads in 5631 newspapers in 2018-19 and Rs 636 crore was spend on ads in 6782 newspapers in the year 2017-18.
