ET Bureau Aug 16, 2013, 05.35AM IST
NEW DELHI: The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has launched the second phase of the Bharat Nirman campaign, spending nearly Rs 22 crore on an advertising blitzkrieg that will highlight the government's major achievements in a run-up to the 2014 general elections.
The multi-media campaign produced by Percept - 'Glimpses of the India Story', will attempt to showcase tangible benefits that have accrued in sectors like education, health, telecom, rural and urban infrastructure driven by plans and policies such as direct cash transfers, Aadhaar, food security, real estate regulations, the Land Acquisition Bill and the Street Vendors Bill, even as the government tries hard to shed an image tainted by scams and allegations of underperformance.
"The initiative aims to take the vision of the government to the masses and how its policies and reforms are focused around empowering the aam aadmi (common man)," said Manish Tewari, the minister for information and broadcasting.
The campaign will also be positioned effectively on new media platforms. Within the ambit of social media, content would be loaded on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and blogs.
Designed by creative agency Percept, the ministry is expected to spend about Rs 22 crore on the month-long campaign that will cover television, print, outdoor, digital, cinema screens, radio and social media extensively in eleven different languages.
In May this year, the government had launched a similar - India Story - campaign. But the campaign was stopped after a few weeks as the Opposition was quick to run down the government's achievements. An I&B ministry official, however, refuted that the campaign was taken off air abruptly. "It was a well-thought out campaign. We planned it that way to avoid over-kill," he said.
A similar advertising campaign 'India Shining' unleashed by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in the run-up to the 2004 general elections had cost the NDA dearly as it was trounced and the Congress returned to power along with the UPA partners and has been in office since then.
On the creative front, a central protagonist of the campaign, Priya has been placed as the key figure to communicate the intent of the government across media platforms. With the help of this imaginary character, the government aims to convey messages on common themes, strengthen recall amongst the target audience and project the empowerment of women within the recent policy reforms its has undertaken.
Given the growing importance of new media, the ministry has recently launched a 'New Media Wing' to take care of requirements of the government on social media. The Cabinet had last week approved the proposal for establishing of the 'Bureau of New and Concurrent Media', headed by a senior officer of joint secretary rank.
The leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, said, "The government has launched second phase of the campaign Bharat Nirman. In fact, it is not Bharat Nirman, it is 'Bharat Pareshan' (India worried)," Swaraj said in a tweet. Tewari retorted tweeting that it was Swaraj's party, the BJP, which was 'pareshan'.
