In five financial years since Himanta Biswa Sarma became chief minister of Assam, his government spent Rs 460.82 crore on media and advertising. In the five years before he took office on May 10, 2021, the state spent Rs 145.01 crore – less than a third as much. 

Among the recipients of that expanded budget is Pride East Entertainment Private Limited, the state’s largest media group, whose managing director and chairman is Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, the wife of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who took office on May 10, 2021. Though the money given to Pride East is a tiny fraction considering the sharp surge in the overall ad spending.

The company received about Rs 20.11 crore in government advertising between just 2021-22 and August 2024, compared to roughly Rs 10.4 crore across 11 financial years from 2010-11 to 2020-21. 

Unlike the figures for overall ad spending, which were placed before the state assembly last month in reply to a question by MLA Wazed Ali Choudhury, the numbers specific to Pride East are drawn from a separate assembly reply. That was tabled on August 22, 2024 in response to MLA Asif Mohammad Nazar’s question about ad money granted to the company. The two disclosures cover different windows: the Choudhury reply runs to the end of 2025-26, while the figures for Pride East stop in August 2024. 

Pride East began in 2008 as a satellite news operation and is now the largest media group in the state. It runs at least two news channels and three entertainment channels, a news portal, several magazines and the newspaper Niyamiya Barta, and in May 2023 it acquired the regional news portal Time 8. Newslaundry has previously reported that its Assamese-language channel, News Live, is the most-watched satellite channel in Assam, according to BARC data.

What the numbers show

For most of the period covered, the sums were modest. Pride East received Rs 5.95 lakh in 2010-11 and Rs 7.77 lakh the following year, and Rs 2.92 lakh in 2012-13. The amounts began climbing in 2013-14, when the company received Rs 30.27 lakh, followed by Rs 73.36 lakh in 2014-15, Rs 77.85 lakh in 2015-16 and Rs 85.17 lakh in 2016-17.

Payments crossed a crore in 2017-18, at Rs 1.37 crore, and continued to rise: Rs 1.44 crore in 2018-19, Rs 2.08 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 2.68 crore in 2020-21. This upward trend therefore predates Sarma’s tenure as chief minister, a period during which he served in successive........

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