No financial payment made to influencers for Union Ministers' interviews, says Anurag Thakur

The central government empanelled four influencer marketing agencies to improve public outreach of its initiatives and campaigns, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry told Parliament.

Anurag Thakur, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Youth Affairs and Sports also clarified that there was no payment made by MeitY to the social media influencers.

His answer was in a written reply to a question by Manish Tewari, a Congress MP on the ‘Request for empanelment with MyGov’ and the cost of the entire exercise.

“The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has informed that MyGov undertook a process for empanelment of influencer marketing agencies in March 2023 with the objective of enabling wider dissemination to enhance citizen engagement in respect of information related to various schemes/ campaigns/ initiatives of the Government of India,” Thakur said.

As per Thakur, the process for empanelment of influencer marketing agencies was initiated by MyGov in March, which aims to broaden information dissemination as well as enhance citizen engagement along with responsibilities such as influencer marketing, content creation, media planning, etc.

Recently, content creator Ranveer Allahbadia interviewed Union Ministers Piyush Goyal, S Jaishankar, and Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan were also interviewed by Raj Shamani.