While the opposition has slammed the Delhi government for hiking the advertising and publicity budget by 2,200 percent over the previous budget, the AAP has claimed the move as a step towards bringing ‘transparency’ in the spending on government advertisements.

New Delhi: If the former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit could do with Rs 24 crore allocation to project her government's schemes and achievements, why would the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government need Rs 526 crore for the same job?

While the opposition has slammed the Delhi government for hiking the advertising and publicity budget by 2,200 percent over the previous budget, the AAP has claimed the move as a step towards bringing ‘transparency’ in the spending on government advertisements.

"Going by the core principles of the AAP, it’s extremely disappointing to see the way the Delhi government has been trying to gain publicity through TV and radio advertisements. The TV ad that projects Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as a demigod is obnoxious. Delhi’s Law minister Kapil Mishra informed me that the publicity budgets of all the departments have been clubbed together, making the cumulative figure look bigger. But that still doesn’t justify Rs 526 crore budget. I’m going to ask how this amount will be spent and under what heads," AAP MLA from Timarpur, Pankaj Pushkar told Firstpost.

A former CAG official, who had earlier audited Delhi government’s account told Firstpost on condition of anonymity, "The previous Congress government had a budgetary provisioning of Rs 10 crore for publicity, which was increased to Rs 24 crore during the Commonwealth Games. What justification could there be of going for a 2200% percent hike? During audits it had been found that under the garb of publicity and releasing advertisements, the departments illegally earn money through ‘cuts’ from private players, like for putting up hoardings etc, ’20 to 30 percent commission’ is demanded. Now, it needs to be seen how the present government works on Rs 526 crore provisioning."

Both the opposition and senior counsel Prashant Bhushan have termed the advertisements released on TV and radio as ‘violation of the Supreme Court’s order’.

Leader of Opposition, Vijendra Gupta said, "The increase of budget on information and publicity by 2,200%, followed by projecting Kejriwal as a messiah in a recent TV ad, violates the order of the Supreme Court."

According to the Supreme Court guidelines, political parties and leaders have been barred from using government advertisements to their advantage – ‘to avoid the misuse of public funds for plugging the ruling party and glorifying politicians’. It further said that the government should use money on publicity for dissemination of information, and suggested that the photographs of the President, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India should be allowed on government ads.

Prashant Bhushan has reportedly said that he would file a contempt petition in the Supreme Court against parties violating the order against promotion of political parties and leaders using public money.

AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha said, "We’re not denying that there has been a hike in the information and publicity budget over the previous year. But, this time the publicity amount of all the departments have been clubbed together under a single head so that the spending could be audited. Due to this reason, the provisioning appears to a big one and the issue has unnecessarily been hyped. The objective is to bring greater transparency in allocation vis-à-vis expenditure."

A senior Delhi government official added, "Earlier, barring the autonomous bodies, different government departments used funds individually for dissemination of information and publicity by routing it through the publicity department. Now, they won’t be able to do so, as all those funds have been brought under one roof. Proper audit of funds used in publicity purpose will be done."