New Delhi: A total of Rs 842.8 crore was spent by the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity during 2015-16 for release of government advertisements on behalf of various central government ministries/departments, attached and subordinate Offices. Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley, while informing that these figures were up to 29 February, added that the largest chunk of Rs 402.79 crore went into print media and the lowest chunk of 7.83 crore went into exhibitions.

In a reply in the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley said today that a sum of Rs 353.31 crore went into the electronic media which includes private cable and satellite TV channels, FM radio, digital cinema, SMS, and internet. A sum of Rs 66.83 crore went into outdoor publicity, and Rs 12.13 crore was spent on print publicity.

Breaking up spends on the print media further, Jaitley said, Rs 864,622,488 went into finance, Rs 313,042,627 in health and family welfare,  Rs 650,186,569 into information and broadcasting, Rs 236,255,392 into social justice and empowerment, Rs 153,758,926 into consumer affairs and food and public distribution, and Rs 109,740,171 into home affairs.

In electronic media, the largest chunk went into publicizing drinking water supply (Rs 888,196,956), followed by Rs 518,201,180 on department of family welfare, tourism (Rs 438,717,736), income tax (Rs 27,504,845) and Rs 238,051,652 on information and broadcasting.