Minister for Education, Naeem Akhter today informed the House that Government would take necessary corrective measures to address various issues in the revised Advertisement Policy-2016.Replying to supplementaries by some legislators in the House, the Minister said the Government after considering the rapidly changing operational environment and the advancements in the field of Journalism over the years considered it necessary to revise the two- decade old Advertisement policy. He said that the old Policy was issued in 1996 in order to bring it in sync with the obtaining requirements.The Minister informed the House that there has been a rapid increase in the number of newspapers and publications in the State and it was felt appropriate to revise the benchmarks for considering the newspapers for issuance of Advertisements.
The Minister while replaying to the main question by Mr Devinder Singh Rana, which was read by Mr Mubarak Gul, said that the State Administrative Council (SAC) after deliberations approved the draft of advertisement policy and was same was issued Wide Government order NO 9-ID of 2016 dated, 04-03-2016.The Minister further said that Government has received some representations seeking withdrawal of certain clauses in the New Advertisement Policy-2016. He said that before the issuance of the revised New Advertisement Policy-2016, the same was put in the public domain on the website for seeking comments from all the stakeholders.
He said that after examining the representations, the final draft of New Advertisement Policy-2016 was prepared and placed before the SAC for consideration and it was approved and issued accordingly. However he said that the new representations received from the stakeholders are being examined in the department. The Minister said that the New Advertisement Policy-2016 has been devised to further promote and strengthen healthy journalism in the State.“Due care has been taken to safeguard the interests of the small and medium newspapers particularly of a vernacular medium,” said Mr Akhtar. “J&K is amongst the rare States in the country where Advertisement rates are uniform for every newspaper irrespective of the circulation criteria,” he said. “This in itself is a tremendous advantage to the small and medium newspapers.”Mr MY Taragmi, Mr Ali Muhammad Sagar, Mr Satpal Sharma, Mr Nawang Rizgin Jora and Mr Vikar Rasool raised supplementaries to the main the question.