SHILLONG: On Thursday, the Meghalaya Cabinet approved the Meghalaya Advertisement Policy, 2023. The policy was developed after consultations with all the stakeholders, according to Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma after the meeting. He claimed that without this regulation, there was a lot of confusion over certain areas of advertisements, particularly for the press and media community, and this led to significant delays in the payment of marketing expenses.
James K. Sangma, the minister responsible for information and public relations, highlighted the key aspects of the policy, stating that it had been long delayed due to the lack of clarity regarding the procedure to be followed for placing advertisements and paying for their costs.
He continued, "Therefore, we believed it was necessary to come up with a system-wide streamlining through an advertisement strategy," adding, "We have also kept in mind the fact that today's advertising and medium of advertising is also a very different environment from what it used to be ten years ago. When taking into account all of those factors, the various forms of technology that have emerged and the fact that social, digital, and online media are also playing a significant role have all been taken into account.
Then he declared that moving forward, the DIPR will serve as the central authority for the issue of government advertisements and the appointment of media outlets for print or electronic distribution. In accordance with this strategy, we have also categorised the different types of media that are available, including print, electronic, and online media in terms of online news portals. Then we also established the terms and conditions for empanelment, which apply to print, electronic, and internet news portals, he continued.
According to the minister, the advertisement policy also specifies how a state-level empanelment committee will be composed of officials from the AIR, deputy commissioners, DIPR, and PIB, among other departments. The empanelment committee's duties would include reviewing, scrutinising, and approving applications that the DIPR has forwarded.
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