Aiming to bolster the communication outreach of two of Centre's flagship programmes — 'Swacch Bharat' and 'Ganga Rejuvenation', the first meeting of its High Powered Committee on Wednesday called for strategising the respective communication campaigns to impact general behavioral change of the general masses.
The Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley, who heads this committee, called for innovative integrated communication strategies by incorporating key messages, tools and effective outreach that would help in raising awareness, visibility, ownership and thereby impacting general behavioural change towards the Swachh Bharat Mission and Namami Gange. One way in doing this according to him, is to link the nature of contents used in the messages with the target audience.
Jaitley pointed out that for an effective outreach and impact it was critical to identify the effective mass media forums for both urban and rural areas. He stressed for innovatively engaging different institutions both public and private to enhance citizens participation.
The meeting also reviewed the progress made under the schemes besides coordinating and monitoring Multimedia Campaigns for their dissemination, outreach and advocacy.
The meeting was attended by Uma Bharti, Minister of Water Resources & Ganga Rejuvenation, Maneka Gandhi, Minister of Women and Child Development, Birender Singh Chaudhary, Minister of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Smriti Irani, Minister of Human Resources Development and Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting. The Secretaries of the concerned Ministries/Departments along with senior officials were also present during the meeting.
Meanwhile, the terms of reference of the committee, that is expected to meet at least once a month include, outlining the communication roadmap for Swachh Bharat Mission and Ganga Rejuvenation for the respective stakeholder institutions, vocations and segments of population.
It will also look into the panning for integrated multi-media campaigns as strategy / design / content creation / implementation besides allocating resources from Ministries for integrated multi-media campaigns, on Swachh Bharat Mission and Ganga Rejuvenation.