New Delhi: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday highlighted an over 84% rise in the Union government’s advertising expenditure between 2020-21 and 2024-25.

The party criticised the Centre for failing to provide this information directly in Parliament, instead pointing to data available on the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) website.

On August 8, in the Rajya Sabha, TMC leader Derek O’Brien had sought details on the government’s spending on advertisements and publicity campaigns across newspapers and television over the past five years.

In a written response, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L. Murugan said the Central Bureau of Communication (CBC) places advertisements on behalf of various ministries and departments, and details of the expenditure are available on the CBC’s website, www.davp.nic.in.

O’Brien criticised the government for not providing a direct reply in Parliament.

The Trinamool Congress independently collected and analysed the data from the website.

"This shaky Modi coalition has found another way to mock Parliament. Now, instead of giving answers directly during the Question Hour, they are directing the MPs to go visit websites. We went there and look what we found!" O'Brien told PTI.

TMC's analysis of the data on the DAVP website shows that the government spent Rs 349.24 crore on advertisements in 2020-21, which went down to Rs 274.87 crore in 2021-22. In 2022-23, the government spent Rs 347.38 crore on advertisements, which increased to Rs 656.08 crore in the pre-election year 2023-24. In 2024-25, the expenditure was Rs 643.63 crore.

"Startling figures that show how the PM (Prime Minister) has become PRM (Public Relations Minister). That and not tabling answers in Parliament. New lows," O'Brien said.

The total ad spent from 2020-21 till August 2025 is Rs 2,320.14 crore.

The average expenditure per year for 66 ministries is Rs 454 crore. PTI