There may be two years left for the general elections but the United Progressive Alliance government is already planning a Rs 550-crore (Rs 5.5 billion) print advertising blitz for its flagship programmes like Bharat Nirman, Sarva Shikhsha Abhiyan and Prarambhik Shikhsha Kosh for this financial year.

This budget is more than five times the Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government spent on its 2004 "India Shining" campaign and accounts for about 8 per cent of the total advertising spend by the corporate sector on the print media last year.

The publicity campaign will be created by the Directorate of Advertising & Visual Publicity under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The I&B ministry is creating a publicity fund that will use 0.5 to 1 per cent of the money allocated for each of the flagship programmes.

For 2007-08, Finance Minister P Chidambaram allocated Rs 24,603 crore (Rs 246.03 billion) for Bharat Nirman and Rs 23,142 crore (Rs 231.42 billion) for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. The two programmes will spend Rs 235 crore (Rs 2.35 billion) on print campaigns, mainly aimed at rural India.

The campaigns for Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh, the elementary education programme based on the proceeds of the education cess, will require Rs 130-140 crore (Rs 1.3-1.4 billion). About ten other programmes will account for the remaining budget.

The I&B ministry has an annual corpus of Rs 12-15 crore (Rs 120-150 billion) to publicise government programmes in remote areas. With this campaign, the corpus will have expanded over 33 times.

A senior I&B ministry official, however, said the advertisements would not resemble the hype of the "India Shining" campaign ahead of the 2004 elections.