ITANAGAR, Feb 21: Coming as a major relief to the media fraternity, the state government today assured to implement the new IPR Policy in toto with effect from the month of March this year.
With the Policy in place, the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) has been entrusted the responsibility to regulate and clear all advertisement bills. The decision is of huge significance, as earlier the DIPR was only looking after the payment concerns of State Sponsored Schemes resulting in huge backlog of outstanding payments involving Centrally Sponsored Schemes; an issue which has been a long pressing concern for media houses in the state.
The development comes following a fruitful meeting between the Arunachal Publishers & Broadcasters Guild with the Secretary IPR, Himanshu Gupta which was attended by Director IPR , Obang Tayeng and senior officials of the DIPR and the members of the Guild at Secretariat today.
It was also decided that an amount of Rs. 5 Crore will be released within March 10 next against the outstanding payables to media houses and the remaining amount will be released in April.
Further, the Arunachal Pradesh Electronic Media Advertisement (APEMA) Policy has also been forwarded for Cabinet approval today.
‘I request the Cabinet to clear the APEMA Policy during its ensuing sitting to pave the way for a vibrant media in the state,’ said President AP&BG, Chopa Cheda.

Furthermore, several issues were also raised by the Guild to bring in better coordination and optimum working environment. The Guild has urged for strict adherence to roster system and equitable distribution of advertisement to all media houses respectively. It also appealed to departments to stop earmarking advertisement to specific newspapers and leave the distribution at the discretion of the DIPR. Another important issue raised was the arbitrary rates fixed by certain departments which contradicts the rate card already fixed by the DIPR.
'The DIPR has already fixed the rates of advertisement for each media house. However, there has been several occasions when few departments have published their advertisement at  rates much lower than the fixed rates. This is disruptive and shouldn't be encouraged,' said Cheda.
The Guild's General Secretary, Mibom Dai, Publicity Secretary Kenter Joya Riba, Vice-president JT Tagam including Editor Arunachal Front, Nani Kojin also attended the meeting.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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