NEW DELHI: The Government has denied that there is any move to drastically cut the budget of the Directorate of Visual Publicity (DAVP).

In fact, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that the publicity budget of DAVP has shown an increasing trend since 2009-10 onwards.

While the actual plan and non-plan DAVP expenditure for 2010-11 was Rs 90.92 crore, it was Rs 127.72 crore in 2011-12, Rs 139.75 crore in 2012-13, and Rs 222.47 crore for 2013-14. In 2007-08 the non plan expenditure for DAVP was 19 crore, after which it jumped to 51.75 crore in 2008-09.

DAVP witnessed the least plan expenditure, viz. 1.34 crore in the year 2006-07.

The allocation of budget for advertisement and publicity of the schemes/programmes of an individual Ministry/Department is allotted by Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance, the Minister told Parliament.

Therefore, Javadekar said this Ministry cannot put embargo on Ministries / Departments /Autonomous Bodies / Constitutional Bodies, etc. resorting to advertising.

In response to another question, the Minister said that the money spent on Electronic Media and Print Media during 2013-14 was Rs 500.35 crore and 446.68 crore respectively. During 2012-13, the money spent on Electronic Media and Print Media was 198.30 crore and 404.38 crore respectively.