The Chhattisgarh government spent Rs 18.57 crore on television advertisements in just three months – between October and December 2024 – according to information obtained under the Right to Information Act. This works out to roughly Rs 20.41 lakh of public money every day.
The biggest beneficiary was the News18 group with Rs 3.07 crore. This is higher than any other network, and more than the ad money to the National Herald in Congress-governed Karnataka which one of its channels had earlier reported as an exclusive.
While the RTI reply from Chhattisgarh’s information department to RTI activist Kunal Shukla detailed the ad money transferred within three months, it’s not clear if it was for ads aired within the same period.
If it was, then the rate of the BJP government’s media spending is higher than that of the previous government led by the Congress. Assembly records show that between December 2018 and November 2021, the Congress government spent Rs Rs 79.62 crore on TV advertisements, averaging Rs 7.35 lakh per day.
The beneficiaries
The News18 group got over Rs 3 crore with Rs 2.34 crore to News18 India and Rs 72.5 lakh to News18 Chhattisgarh. This was followed by local channel INH 24x7 (Rs 1.56 crore), News-24 MP/CG (Rs 1.53 crore), IBC 24 (Rs 1.47 crore), Zee News (Rs 1.19 crore), ABP News (Rs 93.1 lakh) and Asian News (Rs 73.1 lakh).
Other beneficiaries included Har Khabar (Rs 66.11 lakh), BSTV (Rs 64.15 lakh), and Information TV Pvt Ltd’s India News and NewsX (Rs 62.65 lakh).
These were followed by News Nation (Rs 51.46 lakh), Bhopal-based Bansal News (Rs 51.26 lakh), IND 24 (Rs 45.71 lakh), SMBC (Rs 38.92 lakh), News Hour (Rs 24.27 lakh), India TV (Rs 20.76 lakh), Vistar News (Rs 16.35 lakh), and World Media (Rs 16.31 lakh). Republic got around Rs 10.8 lakh, NDTV over Rs 7.6 lakh, Rs 7.06 lakh went to Sanskar TV and Sudarshan News got Rs 5.29 lakh.
In a few cases, the department listed companies that got ads rather than channels. Newslaundry could not verify the channels operated by these companies.
For example, production houses Khushi Advertising Ideas Pvt Ltd (Rs 57,139), QUBE Cinema Technologies Pvt Ltd (Rs 2.06 lakh), and K Sera Sera Cinema Facility Management Pvt Ltd (Rs 3.99 lakh).
Newslaundry emailed Information Department Commissioner Ravi Mittal and Additional Director J L Dario, and spoke to Additional Director Umesh Mishra, who asked for questions to be sent over email. No responses had been received at the time of publication.
Shukla, who regularly files RTIs on government advertising expenditure, told Newslaundry the data shows how loosely public funds are being distributed.
“Many of the channels on the list are not even available in Chhattisgarh,” he said. “Only eight to 10 news channels are actually visible here. Yet channels from Jharkhand, Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana are getting lakhs of rupees.”
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