Govt to spend Rs. 200 crore on image makeover

Finance minister P Chidambaram may be tightening his grip over government finances to reign in fiscal deficit but he could be more than generous in granting Rs 200 crore fillip for UPA's image building in the crucial election year. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 21, 2013, 11:55:07 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Finance minister P Chidambaram may be tightening his grip over government finances to reign in fiscal deficit but he could be more than generous in granting Rs. 200 crore fillip for UPA's image building in the crucial election year.

Finance ministry is said to have agreed to Rs. 200 crore special allocations to the government ministries for highlighting achievements of the UPA government in the last nine years, and an announcement in this regard is expected in the budget for 2013-14.

The UPA policy managers believe that the government has been hit by negative perception in the minds of people because of social activist Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption resulting in the government's achievements on social welfare measures been side-tracked.

"The per capita income of an Indian has more than doubled in the UPA regime," said a senior planning commission functionary and claimed that benefit of rapid economic growth has reached the lowest levels of the society.

But, in the same refrain the functionary admitted that the government has failed to project success of its "inclusive growth" agenda. It was because the government spent most of its three years on fighting allegations of corruption.

It is now time for some course correction.

The Planning Commission, which allocates money to different ministries, is expected to give around Rs. 200 crore for a campaign to showcase the achievements of the UPA government and related benefits for common people.

The allocation would be about four-fold increase in the government's spending on publicity and UPA managers claim it is required in the crucial election year when the opposition parties would be slamming the government on every front.

The money would reflect in the budget of the information and broadcasting ministry and the ministries have been asked the work out the out-reach plan to be executed from the next financial year. "There would be a special component on projecting the government's direct benefit scheme," an official said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the recent Congress Chintan Shivar had expressed his concern over the failure to project the government's achievements and correct public perception. The Rs. 200 crore plan would try to set the record straight on some of the aspects raised by him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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