PIB will now verify newspaper circulation

Indian Express, DNA, Dainik Bhaskar and Pioneer are among other newspapers that will be up for verification.

WrittenBy:Shruti Menon
Date:
Article image
  • Share this article on whatsapp

On August 30, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) issued an order tagged as “most immediate”. In a first of its kind move, the directive entrusts the Press Information Bureau (PIB) with the task of verifying the circulation of newspapers. The Bureau is expected to carry this out through its regional and branch offices. The order notes that these offices may be given additional funds between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 70 lakh per year to carry out the verification.

subscription-appeal-image

Support Independent Media

The media must be free and fair, uninfluenced by corporate or state interests. That's why you, the public, need to pay to keep news free.

Contribute

The ministry order lists the PIB officers who will have to carry out the exercise in 30 days. The order mentions the names of the designated officers alongside the publications whose circulation they will have to check.

While many of the newspapers mentioned in the order are regional, there are also names like The Indian Express and DNA that make up the list. For the Express, designated PIB officers have been asked to verify circulations in big cities such as New Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and Chandigarh, while for DNA, the Ahmedabad and Jaipur editions would be up for verification.

This is the first time that PIB has been tasked with verifying circulation of newspapers. Before this, the task was undertaken by the Registrar of Newspapers of India (RNI).

Newslaundry reached out to I&B spokesperson Chaitanya Prasad and Secretary NK Sinha to know more about the reasons for the change in procedure. Our repeated calls and text messages did not elicit a response. A well-placed source within the I&B ministry told Newslaundry that the task was handed out to PIB keeping in mind the 2019 General Elections so that the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) —  a body that decides allocation of government advertisements to newspapers — knows which newspapers to give ads to based on their real circulation numbers.

While speaking to a bureaucrat who has previously worked with PIB, we were informed that the change of responsibility could be attributed to the lack of manpower at RNI to conduct the verification. The RNI used to get the verification done through District Magistrates (DMs) or Chartered Accountant (CA) firms, the bureaucrat said, on condition of anonymity. However, there have been instances where newspapers managed to bribe the DMs and CA firms to show inflated figures of circulation in order to obtain government ads from the DAVP. This could be one reason the PIB was asked to conduct the verification.

Besides big papers Dainik Bhaskar’s Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Muzaffarpur editions, regional papers will also be up for circulation checks. These include Niyomiya Barta from Assam, Andhra Prabha in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Deepika and Janmabhumi from Kerala and so on.

Speaking to Newslaundry, Frank Noronha, Director General of PIB, said the responsibility was given to PIB after much deliberation by the ministry. “This is an administrative measure for getting effective results. I&B can, within its ambit, do any such administrative arrangement as it sees, because it has a 360-degree view,” Noronha told Newslaundry.

When asked if the change in responsibility could be attributed to the fact that PIB has its offices in smaller states, Noronha said, “Such considerations may have gone into it” but did not comment on whether PIB was consulted on this. “When we take an administrative decision, and this decision is taken by the ministry, they take it after considering all the pros and cons so that the objective, for which the certain measure is taken, is achieved impactfully and effectively,” he added.

Newslaundry tried to get in touch with the RNI director and Press Registrar, we were asked to contact the ministry because it was “policy decision”.

The RNI will continue to issue title verification and registration certificate. It will also help PIB conduct training sessions for PIB officers to hand-hold them through the verification numbers.

Keeping a check: How circulation verification works

The RNI obtains the circulation figures from the respective publications’ annual returns. RNI would then through the CA firms verify the data through physical verification of the printing campus supplemented with the requisite documents from the publisher. According to Clause 12 of the Print Media Advertising Policy of the Government of India, which came into effect in June 2016, every big and medium-size newspaper is to obtain a circulation verification certificate from RNI or the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).

As per the amended guidelines for circulation checks, the verification check conducted by RNI is a two-stage process. The first stage involved RNI obtaining the requisite documents from the publisher. A preliminary check would be conducted by CA firms within 30 days after receiving the documents. The second stage involved physical verification of printing campus by a team comprising RNI officials along with an expert from DAVP to assess things such as the printing capacity, number of copies actually printed, whether a publication is printed outside the press that is owned by some other publisher, etc.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @shrutimenon10.

subscription-appeal-image

Power NL-TNM Election Fund

General elections are around the corner, and Newslaundry and The News Minute have ambitious plans together to focus on the issues that really matter to the voter. From political funding to battleground states, media coverage to 10 years of Modi, choose a project you would like to support and power our journalism.

Ground reportage is central to public interest journalism. Only readers like you can make it possible. Will you?

Support now

You may also like