A small change in Gandhinagar that I think deserves more attention

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For years, if you travelled around Gandhinagar, you could see government posters/hoardings almost everywhere — often featuring Narendra Modi’s image and prominent political branding, along with messages highlighting government achievements.

The question I kept having was simple:

How much public money are we spending on publicity that could instead be spent directly on public services?

Then something interesting happened.

Last week, I noticed that many of these hoardings had changed.

The newer displays I saw were much more information-focused, with substantially less emphasis on political faces and branding. The information itself was still being communicated, but the presentation felt much less like personal publicity.

That made me wonder:

Did someone formally raise the issue of public money being used for publicity? Did an authority review the practice? And did that eventually contribute to the change?

I don't have enough evidence to claim that this is definitely what caused the change. But if a complaint, RTI, administrative review, court intervention, or citizen pressure did contribute to it, this is exactly the kind of civic action that deserves to be replicated.

So here's an experiment for all of us 👇

Look around your own city.

If you see government-funded publicity that appears unnecessarily focused on politicians rather than public information:

- 📸 Take photographs of the hoardings.

- 📍 Record the location and date.

- 💰 Ask who paid for it and how much it cost.

- 📄 File an RTI asking for the expenditure and approval details.

- 🏛️ Ask the relevant municipal/state department what the objective of the campaign is.

- ⚖️ Check the applicable government advertising/publicity guidelines.

- 📊 Compare the cost with the actual public-service objective.

- 🗣️ Share the information publicly rather than making unsupported allegations.

- 🔎 If there is a genuine violation or wasteful expenditure, escalate it through the appropriate institutional channel.

The goal isn't to attack a particular politician or party.

The goal is much simpler:

«If public money is being spent, citizens should be able to ask what it is being spent on, why it is necessary, and whether it provides public value.»

Maybe Gandhinagar's change has a completely different explanation.

But if citizen scrutiny really can change how public money is used, then we should be doing this everywhere.

Don't just complain about your city. Investigate it.

#BeTheChange #CivicAction #RTI #PublicMoney #GoodGovernance #India