The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Tuesday increased the rates at which the Bureau of Outreach and Communication releases advertisements to the print media by 25%, a government press release announced. The Bureau of Outreach and Communication is the Centre’s nodal agency for government advertisements.

The press release said that the decision will be valid for a period of three years starting Tuesday. It added that rates were last raised by 19% in 2013, over and above the rates prescribed in 2010.

Tuesday’s decision to increase rates was taken based on a recommendation by the 8th Rate Structure Committee, which the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had created, the government said. It added that the panel took into account the increase in price of news print, processing charges and other factors.

The government said the order will greatly benefit small and medium scale newspapers, as well as papers in regional languages.

The Congress called the move “yet another tactic” of the Bharatiya Janata Party. “Since 2014, we have seen how the BJP has tried to manipulate the media, has tried to silence the media and believed that they can buy the media because they are in power and because they have the power of money with them,” Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi said, according to PTI. “So this is yet another tactic of the BJP, which is losing ground in 2019, to try and change the narrative towards its own self. They are going to fail spectacularly.”