Government’s ad wing alerts departments about pending dues to media firms

New Delhi: The Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC), the government’s advertising and field publicity wing, has reminded ministries and departments to pay media organisations the money they owe for advertising campaigns in the past few years, said people with knowledge of the matter.

Former information and broadcasting secretary Ravi Mittal had written to all ministries and departments last month, giving them a breakup of what they owed. The BOC has estimated the dues at ₹350 crore, of which 10 ministries account for ₹230 crore. The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) and ministries of labour, rural development and information technology are among those that the BOC has written to. “In view of the unprecedented crisis faced by the newspaper industry, FM radio sector amid Covid-19 lockdown,” the BOC requires funds urgently to pay vendors, said a letter from BOC director general Satyendra Prakash to the DEA on Wednesday that ET has seen. The department’s dues amount to ₹9.36 crore, it said.