Eight years, and more than Rs 2.32 crore a day.

That is what the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has spent, on average, publicising itself since coming to power. Between financial years 2017-18 and 2024-25, the state spent Rs 6,811.94 crore on advertising and publicity – a daily average of Rs 2.32 crore. The figure outpaces even the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, which has spent roughly Rs 1.5 crore a day on advertising over 11 years.

The spending is routed through the state’s Information and Public Relations Department, and it has grown steadily through Adityanath’s tenure, dipping only in the first year of the pandemic before more than doubling. Over 83 percent of it has gone to a single budget head – advertising and visual publicity, the money that flows to newspapers, television channels and, increasingly, digital platforms. Who receives that money is a question the government has repeatedly declined to answer in RTI queries. Newslaundry obtained these expenditure figures from the state government’s own budget documents.

The BJP won the 2017 assembly election, and Adityanath was sworn in as chief minister on March 17, 2017.

Rising year after year

In 2017-18, the first full financial year after Adityanath took office, the information department spent Rs 294.86 crore on publicity. Spending climbed to Rs 330 crore in 2018-19 and Rs 481.67 crore in 2019-20.

It fell to Rs 392.88 crore in 2020-21, the year of the Covid pandemic. Then it surged.

In 2021-22, publicity spending jumped to Rs 1,134.31 crore. The same year, the state spent an additional Rs 1.67 crore publicising Independence Day and Republic Day events, Rs 5.38 crore on the journalists’ welfare fund and Rs 15 crore on the film development fund.

The following year, 2022-23, spending touched Rs 1,420.03 crore – the highest in the available data, corresponding with an election year. That year’s budget separately set aside Rs 15 crore for the film development fund to promote the film sector, Rs 5.52 crore for the journalists’ welfare........

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