Cabinet to likely approve Rs1b fund for publicity drive

The federal cabinet is likely to approve Rs1 billion supplementary grant for the publicity of government measures in its meeting on Thursday.

The Ministry of Information had sent a summary to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet for releasing Rs1 billion fund for media coverage of government projects, which was referred to the federal cabinet after approval.

According to the documents available with The Express Tribune, the Ministry of Information said that there is a need for creating awareness among the public about the current government's housing projects, various welfare projects under the Ehsas programme, information technology, food security and ongoing projects in the energy sector. The government wants to run an advertising campaign on electronic media for the purpose.

According to the Ministry of Information, various projects of the federal government are directly related to the lives of the people but the government could not inform the people about these projects due to lack of funds.

There is also a need to educate the public about the safety measures during the third wave of the Covid-19 epidemic.

The Ministry of Information also said that without funds, it is unable to run advertising campaigns and pay the arrears of media houses.

According to the ECC, a supplementary grant of Rs1 billion will be released for publicity of government initiatives as per the procedure laid down.