New Delhi, Jan. 29: The ministry of women and child development (WCD), headed by Ms Krishna Tirath, appears to have shown undue haste in putting the advertisement which carried the photograph of a former Pakistan Air Force Chief. So much so that it even bypassed the normal procedure of getting clearance from the Prime Minister’s Office, standard procedure which is meant to be followed by all ministries whenever an ad carrying the PM’s photograph is to be released.
As per the rules, any government advertisement using the PM’s photograph has to pass through the PMO, which usually gives its nod. While it is a routine matter, in the case of the ministry’s advertisement, which was published in a leading national daily on January 24, 2010, this was not done. According to sources, the ad would have passed through at least three hands in the PMO and the obvious blunder of former Pakistan Air Force Chief Tanvir Ahmed featuring in it would have been detected.
It is learnt that a similar procedure is followed in case the photograph of UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi is to be used. However, in this case, too, no sanction was sought from Mrs Gandhi’s office for carrying her photograph in the ad.
What has also set alarm bells ringing in the government as far as the WCD ministry is concerned is its penchant for issuing advertisements. According to sources, the ministry has issued at least 16 advertisements in the last six months alone — full-page ones, half-page ones, colour ads, etc. Sources wondered why there was a need to issue so many ads when UPA-II has not even completed a year of its tenure and many new schemes are still being formulated.
Despite repeated attempts on Friday, Ms Tirath could not be contacted for her comments on the ad controversy.
An embarrassed PMO, which is learnt to have taken an extremely serious view of the issue, was forced to issue an apology the day the ad appeared. Interestingly, while Ms Tirath sought to justify the embarrassing goof-up, it was the PMO which had to order an internal inquiry into the lapse.
An indication of how seriously the PMO is viewing the issue also came from the fact that Ms Tirath was summoned by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday and an explanation sought from her. While she reportedly sought to pass on the blame to her officials, sources said the minister approved both the content and design of the advertisement.
It is noteworthy that Ms Tirath’s ministry also ignored the DAVP — the nodal agency for undertaking multimedia advertising and publicity for government ministries and departments — while issuing the advertisement. The DAVP has already said that it had nothing to do with the content of the ad.
Parul Chandra
