New Media Wing To Publicise Government Programmes

New Delhi: The union cabinet Thursday approved the proposal to set up a new media wing in the information and broadcasting ministry for publicizing the government's initiatives through social media platforms.

The new media wing is aimed to "address the communication and dissemination requirements of the government on social media platforms".

"The wing would integrate the communication tools horizontally and vertically through various social media platforms," said an official statement.

The proposal for setting up the new wing has been drawn on the basis of the experience of the initiative undertaken by the ministry recently, on a pilot basis to position itself on the social media platforms such as Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, the statement said.

The new wing would be headed by a senior officer of joint secretary level. The administrative and operational support would be provided by a media unit under the ministry - the Research Reference and Training Division - which would be the wing.

The expenditure for the new wing and the recurring expenditure would work out to 22.5 crore during the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17). The expenditure has been approved by the cabinet committee of economic affairs under the Development Communication & Information Dissemination plan scheme of the ministry.