To build image, Kejriwal govt seeks ‘professional’ help

New Delhi: The Delhi government is all set to be assisted in image building and managing the media by professionals. At a time when the AAP government is being criticised about its functioning and its penchant for ad wars with rivals, it has finalised the appointment of PR firm Perfect Relations as its “media consultant”. The company will not only monitor the media, but also boost the news flow to the press.
The department of information and publicity had floated a tender four months ago to identify a public relations firm that could handle government publicity. Perfect Relations made the cut from around five applicants, according to sources. The cost of hiring the consultant will be met from within the Rs 200 crore allocation for the department in the 2016-17 budget. This includes money already spent and to be spent on advertisements this fiscal.
The CM’s office has two media advisors while the deputy CM’s office has one. The CM’s media advisor, Arunoday Prakash, confirmed to TOI that the appointment of Perfect Relations had been finalised after due process.
“There was a strong need to bolster the department of information and publicity because it is understaffed and has only around four information officers and two deputy directors to cater to all government departments, offices of CM, deputy CM, five ministers, the Delhi assembly and LG’s office,” government sources explained. “Additional information officers cannot be hired as there are no vacancies, and the creation of new posts takes time. Recruitment through UPSC takes even longer. Therefore, the government had to plan to hire a media consultant.”
The consultant has a detailed mandate as set out in the pre-bid document, and so will have multiple tasks, from keeping in touch with various departments and documenting policies, decision and newsworthy developments to content writing for advertisements. This is a weak area right now, according to officials. So, besides stepping up news flow from the government, the Perfect Relations team, likely to comprise of 15 members from the firm with some stationed in the Delhi Secretariat, will also do media monitoring and tracking of social, print and electronic media reportage.
The firm will also organise press conferences.
Last year, the Delhi government had set up an internal ad release agency called Shabdarth to take over the process of releasing advertisements through private agencies. This was justified as not only productive for creating in-house ads, but also to save the 15% commission paid to private advertisement agencies for the release of ads to print media and radio.