Highlighting the salient features of the policy, Minister in charge Information & Public Relations, James K Sangma said it has been long overdue owing to the fact that there has been a lot of ambiguity on the system which needs to be followed for advertisements and also for payment of the advertisement bills.

“Therefore, we felt it the need of the hour to come up with streamlining the entire system through an advertisement policy,” he said while adding, “Also, we have kept in mind the fact that today advertising and medium of advertising is also a very different environment from what it used to be 10 years back. Looking at all those aspects, the kinds of technology that has come in, the fact that social, digital, online media is playing such an important role also – all these things have been factored in.”

He then said that the DIPR will henceforth be the nodal agency for the issuance of government advertisements and other agencies to empanel the print or electronic media houses.

“We have also under this policy classified the various segments of media that are available, that is print, electronic, online media in terms of online news portals. Then we have also set the terms and conditions for empanelment which are also included for print, electronic, online news portals,” he said.

The minister said the advertisement policy is also spelling out the constitution of a state-level empanelment committee consisting of members from various departments which will also include representatives from AIR, deputy commissioners, DIPR and also PIB.

The terms of reference for the empanelment committee would be to examine, scrutinize and accord approval for applications referred by the DIPR.

“We have also spelt out the conditions for eligibility for print, electronic and digital media besides specification of advertisements,” he added.