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

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, I&B Minister Anurag Thakur said that the empanelment ?of influencer marketing agencies was done by the MyGov, the citizen engagement platform of the Union government under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

"Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology (MeitY) has informed that MyGov has in March, 2023 undertaken a process for empanelment of influencer marketing agencies with an objective of enabling wider dissemination and enhance citizen engagement in respect of information related to various schemes/campaigns/initiatives of Government of India," Thakur said on Tuesday in response to a question by Congress member Manish Tewari.

"Based on response to the bid, MyGov has empanelled four agencies. No amount has been spent under the said empanelment process till date," the minister said. He said the Central Bureau of Communications (CBC) under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting undertakes campaigns relating to publicity, awareness generation of programmes, schemes of the government.

"For this purpose, the CBC has in place transparent policy guidelines for empanelment of media/agencies and release of advertisements and other promotions on media platforms, including for digital media/social media," Thakur said.