JAMMU: The government has announced a hike in the advertisement rates for the newspapers and other periodicals. The revision of rates has been done after gap of four years as the earlier rate revision was affected in the year 2013 by the government.

The Government has, for the first time, also introduced category-wise advertisement rates for the newspapers and periodicals as is in vogue in all other states across the country. The Government has also increased the advertisement budget for newspapers substantially during the past three years and it has gone up from Rs 20 crore in 2014-15 to a whopping Rs 30 crore for 2017-18.

As per the order issued by the Secretary Information, Dr Abdul Rashid here today, the newspapers and other periodicals have been divided into four categories as per the Clause (3) of the Advertisement Policy-2016 to ensure judicious and merit-based rates for each category on the basis of circulation, reach, content, number of editions, getup, infrastructure/staff and institutional structure including registration with Labour Department/Salary and PF for staff.

“The new rates would be applicable prospectively subject to the categorization of the empaneled newspapers/other periodicals in light of Clause (3) of the Advertisement Policy-2016,” the order said adding that the Department of Information would restrict the annual expenditure on account of government advertisements strictly as per the authorized budget allocation. 

Pertinently, the Department of Information has already started the process for categorization of the newspapers and other periodicals and has put the information provided by the newspaper owners/editors on the Departmental website to seek objections from the stakeholders. A committee has also been constituted to finalize the categorizationof the newspapers so that the new rate structure could be implemented effectively. 

The Government has in today’s order also covered all the segments of newspapers including weeklies, fortnightlies, bi-weeklies and monthly magazines in the new rate structure announced today.

As per the revised rate structure, the new rates for front page in multi-colored dailies would be Rs 135 per column/per cm for Category ‘A’, Rs 123 for Category ‘B’, Rs 118 for Category ‘C’ and Rs 115 for Category ‘D’, for inner page in multi colored Rs 110 has been fixed for category A, Rs 95 for B, Rs 90 for C and Rs 85 for D category, for inner Black & White, Rs 100 for A category, Rs 85 for B, Rs 80 for C and Rs 75 for D category and for multi colored back page, Rs 125 for A category, Rs 115 for B, Rs 110 for C and Rs 105 for D category.

In respect of Black & White dailies, the new rates for Black & White front page would be Rs 125 for A category, Rs 110 for B, Rs 105 for C and Rs 100 for D category, for Black & White inner page, Rs 100 for A, Rs 85 for B, Rs 80 for C and Rs 75 for D category, for Black & White back page, Rs 110 for A, Rs 100 for B, Rs 95 for C and Rs 90 for category D.

Similarly, is respect of Weekly/Fortnightly/Monthly Multi-colored newspapers, the new rates fixed for multi colored front page Rs 115 for A category, Rs 110 for B, Rs 100 for C and Rs 90 for D category, for multi colored inner page Rs 100 for A, Rs 90 for B, Rs 80 for C and Rs 75 for D category, for Black & White inner page, Rs 85 for A, Rs 75 for B, Rs 70 for C and Rs 65 for D and for multi colored Rs 105 for A, Rs 100 for B, Rs 95 for C and Rs 85 for category D.

Meanwhile for Weekly/Fortnightly/Monthly Black & White, for Black & White front page Rs 105 has been fixed for A category, Rs 95 for B, Rs 90 for C and Rs 80 for category D, for Black & White inner page Rs 85 for A, Rs 75 for B, Rs 70 for C and Rs 65 for category D, while the rates for Black & White back page, Rs 100 for A, Rs 90 for B, Rs 85 for C and Rs 75 for D category.

As per the previous rate structure which was notified in the year 2013, the rates for publication of advertisements on front page in multi-color dailies was Rs 88 per column/per cm while for back page in multi-color dailies the rate was Rs 77. Similarly, the rates for front page of black and white dailies was Rs 67 and for inner pages in all kinds of offset daily newspapers was Rs 56. The rates for publication of advertisements in weeklies, fortnightlies, periodicals, lithosetc was Rs 46.

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