In a first, the Department of Information & Public Relations (DIPR) uploaded on its official website the details of the payment made to individual newspapers and periodicals on account of advertisement bills during the financial year 2016-17. This follows the meeting of the office bearers of the Kashmir Editors Guild with the then Director Information Dr. Arun Manhas earlier this month. The DIPR has released an advertisement payment of Rs 32.05 crore during the fiscal 2016-17 to the newspapers and periodicals, in addition to the advertisements of the PSUs and autonomous bodies valuing around Rs 5 crore. In future the department will make regular payment of advertisement bills. According to Dr. Manhas, the Department will henceforth upload the details of the payment made to the individual publications on a quarterly basis to ensure maximum transparency in the distribution of advertisements and release of payments.
However, as the payments to various newspapers reveal, the advertisement distribution looks patently unfair. Some newspapers not more than a few years old have mysteriously bagged the major chunk of the ad share. Similarly, some newspapers which seem to exist only on paper have received a substantial government ad support. One can also raise valid doubts about the regularity of the appearance of some papers. In some instances, only a few copies are published to be dropped at the offices of Information Department. But still some of these obscure media entities seem to compete with the major newspapers and also some of the oldest for the government ad share.
In fact, some of the oldest papers, including Kashmir Observer which is the second oldest after the leading Greater Kashmir have been given the raw deal. How and why of it has no easy explanation. Nor is there a government policy or criteria which could explain or at least rationalize such munificient distribution of the government largesse to some unknown media entities. Normally, the huge number of dubious beneficiaries should call for some action and enquiry as to the purpose of placing advertisements in papers that, in practice, do not even exist. More inexplicably so, when this sad reality is a public knowledge. But far from impelling the government to take any corrective steps, the situation is likely to go on regardless.
Least that the government can do is to frame a criteria that imparts some method to this madness and explains the unfairness in the distribution of the ads to various publications. Though the state government on the urging of the Kashmir EditorsÂ’ Guild has approved the new advertisement policy, its implementation remains moot. If executed in toto, the policy to a large extent will address the inherent injustice of the existing system. Over the last year, the Government has shown some seriousness about improving the system and the Directors of Information have been at the forefront of this redeeming change, but truth is that so far only small steps have been taken. We need major strides to not only clean up the ad distribution system but also to overhaul it so that it promotes essential public information and developmental activities through genuine newspapers which thus will encourage objective and constructive journalism.
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