SHILLONG, SEPT 25: Information and Public Relation Minister AL Hek today said his department is in the process of preparing the modalities for constituting the Media Society to regulate funds of various departments meant for advertisement and others.
Replying to a cut motion jointly moved by opposition Congress members George B Lyngdoh and Himalaya Shangpliang in the Assembly here on Tuesday, Hek said, “As the task of constituting the Media Society is vast, the department is working on the modalities and the financial implications after which a detailed proposal will be made to the government for fund allotment.”
He said the objective of the society is to handle funds of various departments meant for advertisement, plan media campaigns for government programmes, to formulate policies and procedures for all media related issues.
The minister also informed the House that the Directorate of Information and Public Relations had prepared a draft revised and comprehensive Advertisment Policy and was submitted to the government on June 26, this year for examination and approval.
The draft Advertisement Policy is inclusive and covers all media including print media which include newspapers, magazine and electronic media like television, online media and radio, he said.
According to him, the policy will be made mandatory that all government departments have to ensure that all advertisements are routed through the DIPR except on emergency/urgent situations where concerned department can issue the advertisement directly to the media houses with intimation to the DIPR.
He claimed that equal distribution of advertisements to the media houses is maintained as far as practicable.
With regards to the pending bills, the minister informed that a total of Rs 42.77 lakh is pending to be paid to the media houses till August 2018.
“In the past few years, due to fund constraints, the department was unable to clear the advertisement bills in totality annually as it keeps on accumulating,” he said while informing that only Rs 7.31 lakh was paid to the media houses in the last quarter of this financial year.
Hek also said that there are also many pending advertisement bills lying with other departments and efforts are made by them to clear the bills from time to time.
Earlier while moving the cut motion, Mawsynram legislator Himalaya Shangpliang slammed the state government for reducing the role of the IPR department, which is an important organ of the government, to providing of “public announcement (PA) systems”.
“What will they (department) do with just Rs 2.81 crore when they have so many bills to pay? Everytime VIP comes, they have to issue advertisements but when it comes to clearing bills the department is with no money,” he said.
Stating that bills are pending for years and years due to less allotment of funds to the department, Shangpliang suggested the need to have separate budget for the DIPR and to bring a single window system for clearing bills of different departments.
“We need to give importance to this vital organ like the IPR as through this department we can make and unmake a government,” he said.
He also lamented on the lack of encouragement from the government side to have road shows conducted by the DIPR in order states to promote the state of Meghalaya.
On the other hand, Umroi legislator George B Lyngdoh while urging the government to speed up the setting up of the media society said that the delay in the release of pending bills has really affected the media houses in term salary payment and others.
By Our Reporter
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