NEW DELHI, Feb 9 - The Centre on Thursday has clarified that there is no separate advertisement policy for the Northeastern region but added that Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) has a comprehensive and defined policy to release advertisements with emphasis on North East and other remote areas taking into account the circulation, language and coverage area.
In a Rajya Sabha reply to a question by Ripun Bora, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, M Venkaiah Naidu said that special languages and areas under relaxation include language newspapers such as Bodo, Dogri, Garhwali, Kashmiri, Khasi, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Mizo, Nepali, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Urdu and Tribal languages certified by State Government. Newspapers and journals published in backward, remote, hilly and border areas and those published in Jand K, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and North Eastern States.
The norms for relaxation as envisaged include: newspapers for these areas and languages are eligible for empanelment after six months regular and un-interrupted publication, whereas it is 12 months for publications in other areas and languages.
Similarly, newspapers for these areas and languages are eligible with a minimum circulation of 500. Further, these category newspapers are given priority by Panel Advisory Committee (PAC), while considering empanelment of newspapers.
As per the extant policy, regional language newspapers are given 35 per cent of the total advertisement spent on newspapers. This is to safeguard the interest of all newspapers published in regional languages including those in NE. Currently, no proposal for any special dispensation for NE newspapers, beyond what is already detailed above, is under consideration of the Ministry, Naidu added.
