Patna,(BiharTimes): The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar has always been generous in giving advertisements to various media-houses. Ever since it came to power on November 24, 2005 it has been keeping the media barons in good humour, though in the process the journalists had to make a lot of compromise in their work and toe the state government’s line. Those who dared had to pay the price.

RTI activist Shiv Prakash Rai has once again procured the latest figures of advertisements given by the Bihar government to different newspapers, television channels, radio stations, news-portals etc. A cursory glance of the figures would tell the whole story. Still there is need to explain some points. For example, there is decline in the percentage of advertisements given in the year 2010-11 in comparison to the previous year. But then it needs to be recalled that 2011 witnessed Assembly election so the state government could not give advertisement for about three months. According to the Election Commission rule during election only political parties can give advertisements not the government.

Once again the figures show how lesser known vernacular dailies got disproportionately high advertisements. Small Hindi newspaper like Pratah Kamal and several Urdu dailies also figure prominently in the advertisement lists. Incidentally, two news-portals have also got advertisement, but that does not include BiharTimes.com, which has undoubtedly highest hit among all the portals of the state. In fact BiharTimes has––for the reason best known to the state government––not been empanelled by the Information and Public Relations Department.

It can easily be assessed how in the last seven and a half years there has been ten-times increase in the money spent on advertisements.

It was just Rs 4,49,99,894 in 2005-06, which jumped to Rs 46,99,75,721 in 2012-13. The huge jump of 57.46 percent in advt. to media in 2012-13 from previous financial year is remarkable whereas the increase in 2011-12 was only 4.64 percent. The state government spending on media advertisement has increased almost 10 fold in last seven years.

Thus the total amount spent on advertisements during the Nitish regime stand at Rs 202,12,18,438.

It has often been observed that newspapers gets huge amount of advertisement on the anniversary of the Nitish Kumar government. Dailies, even smaller ones, get four to eight pages of advertisement on this occasion.

Year	Amount (in Rs.)	Increase Percent
2005-06	4,49,99,894
2006-07	5,40,01,195	20.00
2007-08	9,65,85,105	78.85
2008-09	27,52,96,250	185.02
2009-10	34,59,82,522	25.67
2010-11	28,52,70,835	-17.54
2011-12	29,85,20,616	4.64
2012-13	46,99,75,721	57.43
Total	202,12,18,438

As the process of Assembly election was going on during the fifth anniversary on November 24, 2010 the state government chose to pre-pone the occasion and gave huge advertisement to newspapers in July itself. The Election Commission announced the notification of election a few weeks later.

The charity shown towards media tycoons have reduced most TV channels, including prestigious national ones, as well as English, Hindi and Urdu newspapers, to the status of mouthpiece of the Nitish government.

It is only when the situation in Bihar has become extremely bad and the state government has become much weak after the split in the National Democratic Alliance that some media-houses have started exhibiting some signs of boldness. But then there is another business-cum-political factor in such move. Many of them see the possible chance of Narendra Modi emerging stronger after 2014 Lok Sabha election. It is only their pro-Modism that is prompting some media-houses to take anti-Nitish stand on a number of occasions. Besides, they have now realized that the Nitish government has become indefensible.

To be contd...