The maiden meeting of the Empanelment Committee constituted by the State Government in June 2015 for empanelment of fresh newspapers and periodicals for release of official advertisements met here today under the chairmanship of Financial Commissioner Information, Mr B B Vyas.The members of the Empanelment Committee including Director Information, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Special Secretary Finance, Mr M Raju, Additional Secretary Home, Mr Khalid Jahangir, Additional Secretary Information, R K Katoch, Joint Director Information (Headquarters) Mr Abdul Majid Zargar, Associate Professor MERC Srinagar, Ms Sabeha Mufti, Special Officer IIMC Jammu, Mr Manohar Khajuria besides other officers of the Information Department were present at the meeting.The Committee ratified the criteria to be adopted for categorization of the approved newspapers and periodicals for distribution of government advertisements.The Committee observed that in tune with the guidelines laid down in Advertisement Policy 2016, the approved newspapers and periodicals shall be placed in ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ category on the basis of the points scored in various parameters including distribution and reach of the publication (50 Points), getup and quality of content (20 Points), infrastructure & staff (20 Points) and institutional structure (10 Points).
The publications scoring between 81 to 100 points on these parameters shall be placed in ‘A’ category, those securing between 61 to 80 points shall be placed in ‘B’ category, those securing between 41 to 60 points shall be placed in ‘C’ category and the publications securing upto 40 points shall be placed in ‘D’ category.The meeting also approved constitution of committees, one each for Kashmir and Jammu division for review of the existing empanelled newspapers and periodicals in tune with Section 6.1 of the Advertisement Policy 2016.The meeting also discussed the issue of guidelines to be framed for release of advertisements to the electronic and online media for which a proposal has already been moved by the Information Department. It was decided that a Technical Sub-Committee comprising representatives from IT, Law, Finance, Home and other concerned Departments would be constituted to firm up the guidelines for release of advertisements to Electronic and Online Media.The meeting discussed the new cases of newspapers and periodicals placed before it for empanelment and after deliberations it was decided that the Department of Information would firm up the consolidated list of publications in light of the recommendations made by the Committee today.