Rs 1.9 cr a day: BJP govt in MP spent more on publicity than on environment or minority depts

Drive through almost any town in Madhya Pradesh and the state government is impossible to avoid. Hoardings at the chowk. Full pages in the morning paper. Sponsored posts around every government event. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav’s face is on most of them, and not only inside the state. Madhya Pradesh government advertisements have turned up at bus stops in Delhi and at the capital’s airport. 

In 2023-24 and 2024-25, the two most recent years for which audited spending is available, Madhya Pradesh spent Rs 1,413.76 crore under the advertisement and publicity head alone. That works out to Rs 1.93 crore for every day of those two years. In both years, the government spent more on publicity than it had initially told the legislature it would.

For the current year, 2025-26, look at the projection: the Public Relations Department was allocated Rs 632.37 crore for advertising and publicity, and mid-year revised estimates have already pushed that figure to Rs 727.93 crore. If it holds, the three-year total reaches Rs 2,141.69 crore, an average of Rs 1.95 crore a day. 

The department that spends this money, known as Jansampark, sits in the Chief Minister’s portfolio.

The single biggest publicity year in this period was an election year, budgeted and largely spent before Yadav took office in December 2023. But the pattern outlasted the change of Chief Minister.

The election-year surge

The financial year 2023-24 was Madhya Pradesh’s assembly election year. The budget for that year had been presented months earlier, and the bulk of the year was run by the previous BJP government under Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

That is the year publicity spending broke records. Actual spending reached Rs 817.58 crore against a budget estimate of Rs 513.59 crore, an overshoot of nearly Rs 304 crore, or 59 percent more than the government had said it would spend. For scale, the Public Relations Department's total expenditure, publicity and everything else combined, was Rs 285.14 crore in 2021-22 and Rs 479.17 crore in 2022-23. In 2023-24 the publicity head on its own was larger than either of those full-department totals.

Most of it went to the media. Print took the largest share at Rs 319.99 crore, with electronic media close behind at Rs 266.29 crore, Rs 586.28 crore between them. Another Rs 190.06 crore went under the head “publicity on special occasions” and Rs 103.99 crore on organising and managing programme events. Smaller heads made up the rest: Rs 30.20 crore under advertisement, sale and publicity expenses, Rs 9.89 crore on field publicity including fairs and exhibitions, and Rs 1.60 crore on beneficiary welfare publicity.

It did not come down the next year. In 2024-25, the first full budget of the Yadav government, Rs 518.11 crore was earmarked for advertisement and publicity – the revised departmental total stood at Rs 736.07 crore. Within that allocation, print media was given Rs 200 crore, electronic media Rs 146.39 crore, publicity on special occasions Rs 120.21 crore and programme events Rs 60 crore, with Rs 10 crore for field publicity, Rs 9.16 crore for film production and distribution and Rs 5.56 crore for departmental publications. Actual spending again ran past the allocation, reaching Rs 596.18 crore, some Rs 78.07 crore more than budgeted.

The department’s total actual expenditure came in at Rs 675.21 crore against a revised estimate of Rs 736.07 crore, a saving of about Rs 61 crore made on administrative and operational costs. 

The department began 2025-26 with a total budget of Rs 875.59 crore, of which Rs 632.37 crore was for advertisement and publicity. By the mid-year revision the publicity figure had been raised again, to Rs 727.93 crore, a projected increase of nearly Rs 96 crore, while the department’s overall budget was cut from Rs 875.59 crore to Rs 797.80 crore, once more by trimming administrative and operational heads. Measured against the previous year’s actual spending, the revised publicity estimate is a rise of 22 percent. 

Across the three years the department as a whole was given Rs 2,661.94 crore. 

What the money didn’t buy

There appears to be a gap if you set this spending against the departments that serve the state’s vulnerable sections or some key departments.

The Minority Welfare Department received Rs 154.56 crore in 2023-24, Rs 156.51 crore in 2024-25 and Rs 157.27 crore in 2025-26 – Rs 468.34 crore over three years, less than a quarter of the publicity bill. Cottage and Rural Industries, in a state where most people live in villages and depend on farming and small industry, got Rs 132.98 crore, Rs 152.60 crore and Rs 157.52 crore, or Rs 443.10 crore in all. The Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes Welfare Department got Rs 42.76 crore, Rs 48.10 crore and Rs 60.34 crore, a three-year total of Rs 151.20 crore. The Environment Department got Rs 35.21 crore, Rs 26.22 crore and Rs 38.72 crore, adding up to Rs 100.15 crore.

Print advertisements alone cost Rs 319.99 crore in 2023-24 – more than twice the minority welfare department’s entire budget that year, and more than the Science and Technology Department’s entire actual expenditure of Rs 233.26 crore. 

The Denotified and Nomadic Tribes department’s whole three-year budget of Rs 151.20 crore is less than what the government spent on electronic media publicity in the single year 2023-24. The Environment Department's three-year budget is roughly half of what was spent on publicity for special occasions in that one year. And the three-year budget for Cottage and Rural Industries falls at least Rs 140 crore short of what print and electronic advertising cost in 2023-24 alone.

Several of these departments do not spend what they are given.

The Minority Welfare Department had Rs 154.56 crore in 2023-24 and spent Rs 10.53 crore. Its flagship scheme, the Development Programme in Minority-Dominated Districts, was allocated Rs 140 crore and spent Rs 70.03 lakh, under one percent of the money set aside. Rs 60 lakh for a Haj House, Rs 60 lakh for post-matric girls’ hostels and Rs 1.60 lakh for Waqf Tribunal infrastructure went largely untouched. The following year, the department’s Rs 156.51 crore estimate was slashed to Rs 16.34 crore at revision, and the minority-districts scheme was cut from Rs 140 crore to a token Rs 2,000.

The Science and Technology Department left about 32 percent of its 2023-24 budget unspent, using Rs 233.26 crore of Rs 343.04 crore. Optical Fibre Connectivity, which had absorbed Rs 185 crore in 2022-23, was cut to Rs 3,000 in 2023-24, held there in 2024-25 and zeroed in 2025-26. The PM GatiShakti Data Centre scheme took Rs 40 crore in 2023-24, fell to Rs 3,000 the next year and then to nothing. Building construction for the state science council got Rs 3 crore in 2022-23, then Rs 1,000 a year for three years running. Infrastructure in engineering and medical colleges had Rs 7.99 crore in 2022-23 before being reduced to a token Rs 2,000. Science Parks had Rs 10.32 crore in 2023-24 and zero by 2025-26. On paper, the department’s allocation surged, from Rs 343.09 crore to Rs 472.34 crore to Rs 497.79 crore.

The Environment Department spent Rs 17.75 crore of its Rs 35.21 crore in 2023-24, barely half, with almost nothing on capital projects. Its 2024-25 budget was cut from Rs 38.71 crore to Rs 26.22 crore at revision. It was granted Rs 38.72 crore in 2025-26. 

The Denotified and Nomadic Tribes department, which funds hostels, scholarships and settlement development, was given Rs 42.76 crore in 2023-24, saw it revised down to Rs 36.67 crore, and finally spent Rs 25.35 crore – leaving Rs 17.41 crore of the original allocation unused..

Newslaundry has sent queries to the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. A questionnaire has also been sent to Manish Singh, MP’s Commissioner of Public Relations. This report will be updated if a response is received.

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