Under fire and severe criticism from its political opponents over its style of functioning and its fondness for the advertisements, the Aam Aadmi Party government has now sought professional help for
Under fire and severe criticism from its political opponents over its style of functioning and its fondness for the advertisements, the Aam Aadmi Party government has now sought professional help for image building and media management. The Delhi government has appointed Perfect Relations, a public relations firm, as its “media consultant.” Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s media adviser Arunodya Prakash has confirmed the move.
Perfect Relations was established and co-founded in 1992 in Delhi by image consultants and media commentators Dilip Cherian and Bobby Kewalramani. The cost of hiring the consultant will be met from within the Rs 200-crore allocation for the department in the 2016-17 budget. This includes money already spent and to be spent on advertisements this fiscal. There has, however, been no official confirmation in this regard from the PR agency.
The AAP government had last year set aside Rs 526 crore for information and publicity in the 2015-16 budget, drawing severe criticism from both the BJP and the Congress. Earlier, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley had criticised the AAP government, saying the government is using advertising funds to manipulate the media.
“While ‘friendly’ media is being given advertisements, media houses which are critical of the AAP government are being denied ad revenue,” Mr Jaitley had said in an interview.
Last year, Shabdarth, an internal ad release agency, was set up by the Delhi government to take over the process of releasing advertisements through private agencies.
