Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday said he welcomed the decision of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to audit its two departments, the Public Works Department and Department of Information Publicity, adding that the audit would bring out the truth about the expenditure made on advertisements during 2015-16 by the Delhi Government.
In a letter to Shashi Kant Sharma of the CAG, he said the Delhi Government would welcome a similar audit by the CAG of all its departments.
In his letter, Sisodia stated that the CAG audit findings will nail the lies being spread by vested interests about the amount spent by the Delhi Government on advertisements during the entire financial year 2015-16.
“Various kinds of misinformation are being spread about our Government’s advertisement expenses. It is not more than `75 crore for the entire year, which I am sure will come out in your audit,” Sisodia wrote.
He further stated that he was disappointed to know that the CAG was only auditing the advertisement expenses of the Delhi Government alone. It is not auditing the advertisement expenses of either the Central Government or any other State Government, he said.
The Deputy Chief Minister said, “In our meeting I had brought to your attention how thousands of crores of rupees were spent by the Central Government on publicising ‘Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan’, ‘Mann Ki Baat’, ‘Yoga Day’, ‘Jan Dhan Yojana’, ‘Make In India’, ‘Give Up lPG Subsidy scheme’, etc. Advertisements were placed in all national dailies in addition to TV and radio campaigns which ran for more than a week celebrating PM Narendra Modi’s two years in office’’.
“The Governments of Telangana, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu among others carried a massive publicity campaign across all states in India,’’ he said.
“Therefore, advertisement expenses of all Governments are being debated nationally for last few years. I would be extremely grateful if you can direct the Principal Accountant Generals of other State Governments which have much larger publicity budgets than the Government of Delhi to carry out a comprehensive audit of the government ad expense of their respective states,” Sisodia wrote.