DIPR makes big claims, Publishers terms these false

Details of payment publications to be uploaded on website : Dir

Srinagar, May 22: The department of Information claimed to have released a payment of Rs 32.05 crore during the fiscal 2016-17 to the newspapers and periodicals on account of the past liabilities and the advertisements issued under the budget head during the last financial year. It further claimed that the Department would upload on its official website the details of payment made to individual newspapers and periodicals as has been demanded by a Kashmir based journalist body ‘Editors Guild Kashmir'.

Department further claimed that advertisements of the PSUs and autonomous bodies valuing around Rs 5 crore have been issued to the newspapers and the periodicals under the non-budgeting head by DIPR during the past fiscal. However, most of the publishers from Jammu denies such misplaced claims of the Information department adding that the department could not issue yet the revised rate of government advertisements which the government announced in the Assembly here in Jammu. In consequence to this laxity, the advertisement bills by the newspapers could not be submitted in the absence of revised government rate. Further, not a single penny has been paid by the department to the publishers for the advertisements issued during month of March 2017 as claimed by its earlier Director.

The department has further copied and pasted a press statement which its former Director Shahid Iqbal Choudhary issued earlier at least thrice to the media at different intervals during 2016-17.

‘Its verbatim statement said that against the advertisement budget of Rs 22 crore allocated to the DIPR for the year 2015-16, the Finance Department had initially approved a budget allocation of Rs 25 crore for the year 2016-17.  However, on the request of DIPR an additionally of Rs 2.80 crore was provided to the Department during the past fiscal to clear the previous liabilities.

Accordingly, the DIPR made a cumulative payment of Rs 27.80 crore to the newspapers in the both the divisions during the past fiscal on account of the budgeted advertisement bills, out of which around Rs 10 crore were paid towards clearing past liabilities while the remaining amount was paid on account of past year's advertisement bills. In addition advertisements worth around Rs 5 crore were issued to the newspapers under the non-budget head last year.

As the Government has already released 50% of allotted budget for the financial year 2017-18, another Rs 3 crore were released to the respective Joint Directors of Information last month for making payment to the newspapers on account of advertisement bills. The cumulative payment made to the newspapers during the past 13 months has touched Rs 32.05 crore in addition to another Rs 5 crore advertisements issued under non-budget head.'

During their meeting with the Director Information, Dr Arun Manhas last week, the office-bearers of the Editors Guild Kashmir had sought details of the payment made to the individual newspapers as according to them they had no information about the payments made to them by DIPR as the same was directly credited into their bank accounts. The Department has accordingly decided to upload the details of the payments on its official website for the information of the concerned newspapers.

Most of the Publishers of Newspapers of Jammu and many from Srinagar termed these habitual statements as bundles of white lies. They vociferously refuted the misleading statements of the Information department.

Jammu publishers said that for the past over two year the Department of Information & Public Relations (DIPR) has been making false and misleading statements publically before media about their acts which they never acted. It all started over a year back when a media savvy Director Choudhary Shahid Iqbal, to steal the headlines for limelight, started issuing false statements regarding functioning of Information Department under his stewardship.

The trend seemed to continue with the legacy left over by Shahid and picked up by the new incumbent without peeping into departments own working.

The department of information that has been left to the novices with no knowledge of media relations continue to mislead the public and government for

Pertinently, 368 newspapers and periodicals, including 201 in Jammu and 167 in Kashmir, are presently empanelled with the Department of Information for release of official advertisements.

The empanelled newspapers and periodicals include 83 English dailies (49 in Jammu/34 in Kashmir), 103 Urdu dailies (74 in Kashmir/26 in Jammu), 20 Hindi dailies (all in Jammu), 2 Kashmiri dailies (all in Kashmir), 1 Dogri daily (in Jammu), 34 English weeklies (23 in Jammu/11 in Kashmir), 9 Hindi weeklies (8 in Jammu/1 in Kashmir), 78 Urdu weeklies (42 in Jammu/39 in Kashmir), 1 Kashmiri weekly, 2 Dogri weeklies, 3 Urdu Bi-Weeklies (in Jammu), 9 English fortnightlies (7 in Jammu/2 in Kashmir), 5 Urdu fortnightlies (all in Jammu), 8 Hindi fortnightlies (all in Jammu), one Punjabi fortnightly (in Jammu), 8 English monthlies (5 in Jammu/3 in Kashmir), 2 Hindi monthlies (all in Jammu), 1 Urdu monthly (in Jammu) and 1 Punjabi monthly (in Jammu.