Photo Credit: Indiatimes

A recent Comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) report has shed light on the fact that the total expenditure of Rs 33.40 crore was incurred on releasing advertisements outside Delhi, violating the advertisement guidelines issued by the Supreme Court.

The CAG report revealed that over 85 per cent of the expenditure was incurred on one specific publicity campaign pertaining to ads released outside the national capital.

The report also bashed the government for putting out ads which had non-certifiable content. Citing one such ad on saving Rs 350 crore on three bridges, the report clearly signaled that work in one of the bridge while mirror work was carried out in the rest two.

But it also said that the saving on the works conducted on the three bridges were clearly an assessment and not actual expenditure.

In reply, the Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) said the Aam Aadmi Party government, which failed to come to power in both Goa and Punjab yesterday, is the “nomenclature used for Delhi government by the public”.

Regarding the ads featuring the Centre, the directorate was quick to term it as a political matter between two governments that was put before the public.

The audit report also criticised the AAP government for founding Shabdarth, which is an agency set up to handle its publicity and ad campaigns. It mentioned that the agency did not submit bills of newspapers and released advertisements without determining the accurate cost.

Some other discrepancies pointed out were improper maintenance of registers for outdoor campaigns. Further digging into the matter, the report aid apart from an expenditure of Rs 81.23 crore by the DIP, Rs 20.23 crore was paid in 2016-17 for ads released during 2015-16, bringing the total expenditure to Rs 101.46 crore.