Mumbai: The Fadnavis government which kept claiming to be an austere government, spent Rs 85,000 daily on their audio-visual publicity through advertisements in 5 years of their term.
As per the information accessed by activist Nitin Yadav under the Right to Information Act, the Fadnavis government spent Rs 15.51 crore on publicity on radio and TV channels.
Nitin Yadav, a Karanjepool resident in Baramati tehsil and Pune district sought to gain information from the Directorate General of Information and Public Relation (DGIPR) on expenditure on advertisements on TV and radio channels.
Dnyaneshwar Igawe, senior Assistant Director of DGIPR provided the break-up from 2013-14 to 2019-20 in which it was revealed that the Fadnavis government had spent a whopping Rs 5.99 crore on TV channels advertisements in 2017-18 itself. In the same year, Rs. 1.20 crore were spent on radio advertising.
Funds spent
In 2013-14, Rs 59.96 lakhs were spent on radio advertisements and 53.25 lakhs on TV advertisements. In 2014-15, these figures were Rs 84.84 lakh and Rs 44.63 lakhs and Rs 46.96 lakh and Rs 44.63 lakhs in 2016-17. In 2018-19, Rs 1.85 crore were spent on radio advertisements and Rs 2.84 crore was spent on TV advertisements. In 2019-20, these figures were Rs 11.32 lakh and Rs 83.74 lakh.
It is to be noted that the Fadnavis government ruled the state from 31st October 2014 to November 2019. “The Fadnavis government has spent Rs 85,000 per day on advertising in TV and radio channels in the last five years," said Nitin Yadav. Devendra Fadnavis who appealed to people not to spent money on his birthday, spent public money on advertisements, he added.
