Advertisements: Govt may allocate 2.5% of Project budget
Aftab Ahmed
Islamabad: The information and Broadcasting Division has proposed the government allocate 2.5 percent of the total budget outlay of any project in the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) in the new advertising policy 2021.
The PTI government will spend this budget on advertisement campaigns as part of its strategy to highlight its achievements before the upcoming election.
The government has approved the Advertisement Policy 2021′ in principle.
However, it has directed Planning Commission to prepare guidelines with the approval of ECNEC, for a percentage of the budget, an outlay of any PSDP project for running an effective advertising campaign on media.
The Information and Broadcasting Division will advertisement policy to the cabinet after briefed the Cabinet after deciding the percentage of budget outlay for the advertisement campaign on media.
One of the mandates of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting Division is to formulate Policies regarding government advertisements, control of advertisements, and their placement.
Similarly, the Ministry of Information has centralized all advertisements of the Federal Ministries/ Division/ Departments/ Organizations/ Statutory/ Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Bodies.
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This scheme of Centralization of Advertisement was introduced in July 1966 and provided for the release of all newspaper advertisements （both classified and display) emanating from Ministries/ Divisions/Departments Autonomous Organizations and Statutory Bodies under the control of the Federal Government through Press Information Department (PID)and Directorate of Film and Publication (DFP), attached departments of the Ministry of Information &Broadcasting.
The federal government had conveyed directions for the centralization of all advertisements on July 1, 1966. Various governments had re-affirmed in 1980, 1985, and 2003.
There had been exponential growth in the print, electronic, and particularly digital media in our country.
The rapidly changing media landscape and newly emerging media platforms of social and digital media demand a comprehensive and holistic media policy that would cover traditional as well as new media.
In view of the aforementioned, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting sent a draft advertisement policy on December 27, 2019, for approval.
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However, Prime Minister’s Office conveyed a set of observations on the said draft advertisement policy with instructions to re-submit the summary with an appropriate response to those observations.
Accordingly, the ministry had revised the draft Advertisement Policy 2021.
