By Ranjana Narayan, IANS,
New Delhi : The government’s ad blitz to publicise its welfare measures has not gone unnoticed – almost 70 percent of rural India are aware of the government’s programmes and of them half are appreciative of the measures, Information and Broadcasting ministry Secretary Bimal Julka says.
A survey has indicated that 70 percent of rural people know about the government’s policies – thanks to the Bharat Nirman positive India story detailing the UPA government’s populist measures, Julka told IANS in an interview.
“The reach of AIR and Doordarshan is growing; our reach is far more dominant than the print media. Almost 70 percent of the rural populace have seen the policies of the government, and of them 50 percent appreciate of the plans,” he said.
With the elections, including state and the 2014 general elections, it is necessary to disseminate the information before the model code kicks in, he said.
To ensure that people get detailed information about all government welfare measures, the information and broadcasting ministry has requested the central government that all government departments have a component of IEC, or information education committee, he said.
“Whenever a new scheme gets approved, we can dovetail the resources from various government departments and disseminate the information to the masses … like the Janani Suraksha Yojana, and the programme for a healthy child sex ratio, both are women and child welfare programmes. We are emphasising that every department has a component of IEC so that a budget can be fixed. This would be used for marketing and advertising the programme so that people are informed in the language they understand,” Julka told IANS in an interview.
The Bharat Nirman advertising programme, which is in Hindi and English, would soon be made available in 13 Indian languages.
The translation into different languages would be done by the in-house language experts of the ministry’s Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) department, he said.
The United Progressive Alliance government launched its second phase of Glimpses of India Story on Aug 14, detailing its nine years of governance and the various populist steps it has taken, including the Land Acquisition Bill and the National Food Security Bill.
The first phase was launched May 22. On Monday, the ministry launched its Bharat Nirman online interactive portal where people can browse on the various programmes and even ask questions.
(Ranjana Narayan can be contacted at [email protected])