Punjab has some unique publicity ideas,Authority is not impressed

Punjab thought animated figures and comicbook drawings complete with speech bubbles would help reach the message of Aadhaar to a wider audience. UIDAI believes Aadhaar must communicate in only one visual language,common across the country.

The result: the enrolment drive for issuing the unique identity cards will begin next week without the posters and cartoons prepared by the Punjab Food and Civil Supply Department,the nodal agency for implementation of the Aadhaar scheme in the state.

The department’s creative inputs had a catchy Punjabi flavour. “Na fikar na fakka,sade kol hai aadhaar-rupi chatta (Neither worry nor hunger,we are protected by the umbrella of Aadhaar),” goes the punchline in the poster with the family — daddy,mummy and kids — under the clouds.

Alaknanda Dayal,director,Food and Civil Supply,and UID registrar of Punjab,explained why the department had thought it might be a good idea to tweak the UIDAI’s publicity material to Punjabi tastes.

“We asked our department to come up with creative ideas to popularise the scheme. Though the (UIDAI’s) publicity material has been translated into regional languages and each state has its own people in their posters,pamphlets and other publicity material,we thought it would be easier for people to identify with caricatures and cartoons,” Dayal said.

It worried the department,for example,that the UID jingle sounded too plain,and had no Bhangra beats.

But the UIDAI won’t allow improvisations in its national ad campaign.

“The logo,audio and visuals throughout the country have to be the same as it is with any government scheme. The idea is that even an illiterate person of any state should be able to identify with the logo,the tune and the visuals,” said Charu Bali,additional director general,UIDAI regional office,Chandigarh.

“It (the campaign) has been suitably moulded in every region with (the local) language,pictures and lyrics,” Bali said. “The entire campaign is being executed in consultation with the states. But the publicity material has to maintain a basic uniformity.”

UIDAI has also been unhappy with the half-page publicity ads put out by the government in newspapers this week,showing Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Food and Civil Supply Minister Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon. In its defence,Punjab has argued that Haryana too put out similar ads,with pictures of the chief minister and the minister and the chief parliamentary secretary concerned.