NEW DELHI: An agency approached journalists of Washington Post recently on behalf of the Indian government to apparently push for stories on climate change ahead of the Climate Change Conference in Paris that starts on Monday, ET has learnt.Annie Gowen, the India bureau chief of Washington Post, had tweeted on Friday that they had been contacted “twice in recent weeks by private PR companies representing Indian government officials,” creating a furore in social media. ET has now learnt these firms were pushing stories on climate change ahead of the Climate Change Conference, as part of their efforts to put forward the Indian government stance. Environment ministry officials, however, told ET that they had only hired an IT solutions firm to manage the website of Paris climate change talks and social media posts. “There is no PR agency. Even hiring of the IT company to run the website was done after due processes were followed,” a senior government official told ET.He added that this is part of the government’s instructions to every ministry and department to have a proper communication strategy with emphasis on the social media.“The cost of publicity has actually come down for us because we are using social media. One of the jobs of the company maintaining the website was also sending mails to all journalists covering environment about events. No one was asked to promote anything,” the government official said.Gowen, when contacted by ET, did not comment on the issue. A government spokesperson, however, strongly denied that any agency has been hired for the purpose of information dissemination. “Government has not hired any agency for information dissemination,” the spokesperson said.Gowen, in multiple tweets on Friday and Saturday, had questioned if hiring a PR firm was good use of government funds.