The Centre has finally crossed the digital barrier to adopt the new age media of SMS messages and internet advertisements to reach out to the masses.

The directorate of advertising and visual publicity (DAVP) has been asked by the information and broadcasting ministry to use bulk SMS and advertisements on popular websites instead of remaining stuck to publicity through newspapers, television and radio.

Tenders were issued last week inviting applications for providing the bulk SMS and internet advertisements. The government hopes that the publicity stuff on digital media will start rolling out in the next two months.

One factor which has always pained both the government and the Congress is that though they are introducing a lot of new programmes but the message of these programmes are not reaching the people effectively.

I&B minister Ambika Soni has also gave the idea to her party to go for bulk SMSes to reach out to the people. It is better to be late than to never do something was the response of the Congress sources when they were told that the BJP has been effectively using SMS for poll campaigns since 2004 and the RSS outfits have been creating nationwide campaigns through bulk messages, including those sent out to support the fasts of Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev.

The sheer number of over 70 crore mobile phone users in the country makes SMS the best media to reach out to people and it happens at a fraction of the money that DAVP spends today on electronic and print media, the officials pointed out.

They said the impact of the SMS is not known and hence the DAVP will run the service on a pilot basis for three months to test the effectiveness.