TS Govt will promote small newspapers: Eatala

Finance Minister Eatala Rajender on Friday informed the Legislative Assembly that the Telangana Government would continue to promote the small newspapers in the State.

Replying to a question raised by BJP MLA NVSS Prabhakar during Question Hour, the Finance Minister said that there were 165 small dailies which empanelled based on the certificate of the Registrar of Newspapers of India (RNI) containing the proof of publication from Telangana districts. There are no periodicals empanelled in Information & Public Relations Department.

Eatala said that the advertisements to periodicals (magazines) would be issued on ad-hoc basis duly taking into consideration the RNI Certificate, regularity, content (socio-economic/political/education, etc.,), Editorial, coverage of government welfare schemes, use of newsprint (Maplitho/Art Paper) and number of pages. He also informed that so far Rs 24.24 lakh of advertisements were given to those magazines since the formation of Telangana.

The Finance Minister said that the advertisements were related to Kalyana Lakshmi, Shaadi Mubarak, Water Grid, Mission Kakatiya and other schemes and there were no irregularities in issuing the advertisements. He said that small newspapers play an important role in the society and since the big newspapers have a higher tariff, the government intends to promote small newspapers. He said similar policy would be adopted for TV channels.