CAG in its report has flagged increasing expenditures on publicity and advertisements by the AAP government. The CAG has rapped the government for increasing this expenditure from 25.25 crores in 2013-14 to Rs 81.23 in 2015-16 and the expenditure is projected to increase to Rs 114.21 crores. The period of scrutiny undertaken by CAG is from the year 2013 to 2016.

A closer look at the CAG report

The expenditure registers revealed an expenditure of Rs 81.23 crore by Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) to which an additional 20 crores was paid by DIP in 2016-17 for advertisements released in 2015-16 bringing the total expenditure on advertisements released during 2015-16 to Rs 101.46 crore. CAG released a committed liability of Rs 12.75 crore in respect of audio-visual advertisements during 2015-16. And the actual cost of advertisements released during 2015-16 is expected to go beyond Rs 114.21 crore. 85 per cent of the expenditure of Rs 33.40 crore incurred in one specific publicity campaign pertained to advertisements released outside the NCT of Delhi. The CAG has criticised the AAP government for using the name and symbol of their party in government advertisements which is against the guidelines laid by the Supreme Court that gave a judgement against the glorification of political parties. The guidelines were to maintain political neutrality. The advertisements on women’s safety, CAG said has attempted to project the central government and the Delhi Police in negative light thereby violating SC guidelines as mentioned earlier.

The opposition parties have slammed the AAP for the huge expenditure on advertisements and have demanded the CAG report to be placed in the assembly.

The Logical Indian condemns this extravagant expenditure on ads against the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court besides not being true to principles on which the party was found and stormed to power.