From using a speech of Rajiv Gandhi about just Rs 15 of every Rs 100 reaching the poor to hardsell its direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme to showcasing the Land Acquisition and Food Security Bills,a slew of new advertisements under Bharat Nirman are set to publicise schemes and programmes that may or may not see the light of day before Lok Sabha elections. The Bharat Nirman phase-II advertisements unveiled Wednesday include right to information,a law the government stands accused of diluting because of the refusal of political parties to come under its ambit. There is also an advertisement on secularism/ federalism,one on Aadhar,and on the Real Estate Bill. It is the mandate of the I&B Ministry to remit government policies to the public. In case executive or legislative action is required to implement those policies,the ads clearly say so. There has been no attempt to obfuscate truth. Many issues are such that work on them had started even before the second innings of the UPA and they address the fundamental questions in front of the nation. We hope parliamentarians rise above partisan political interest and pass them, I&B minister Manish Tewari said when questioned about the apparently premature publicity of pending legislations. He added that between 2007-08 and 2013-14,a little over Rs 350 crore had been spent in publicising government policies. Other than what he called a few blips on the economic radar,Tewari said the UPA government had driven the word instability out of the political lexicon. He could not help taking a dig at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for deriding the Prime Ministers Independence Day speech. It is very unfortunate because the Prime Minister does not address the nation as representative of a political party,he does so as Prime Minister of India. Such shallow,opportunistic and irresponsible statement does not behove the chief minister of a state, he said.
