Hike in DAVP ad rates hailed

MUMBAI, JAN 1: The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has welcomed the government’s decision to effect an across-the-board hike of 30 per cent in Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) advertisement rates from January 1 but has asked for more.

Reacting to the announcement by I&B Minister Pramod Mahajan yesterday granting this long-pending demand of the print media, INS president Mammen Mathew said though the 30 per cent hike was welcome because DAVP rates had been pegged at totally unremunerative levels for a long time, it was not enough. “The INS is disappointed that the government did not consider the long-standing request to accept the market rates for DAVP advertisements,” he said. Once that is done, he said, a number of publications which do not carry DAVP ads would be willing to carry them and the government’s message would get as wide coverage as possible.