A day after the a request for proposal (RFP) issued by the Union Culture Ministry featured “one Twitter trending” on the list of tasks for publicity agencies and received a slew of criticism for it, the Ministry’s autonomous organisation Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT) issued a corrigendum explaining what the criterion entailed and clarified that it did not include paid tweets.
“The scope of work indicated under the concerned line items One Twitter trending indicates the onboarded entity has to collaborate with various stakeholders with an aim to increase the outreach of the event across social media platforms to facilitate mass participation and engagement. The scope is, in particular, applicable for social media platforms such as Twitter, where trends can be done organically without any financial considerations,” the corrigendum said.
The CCRT on Thursday RFP floated the RFP for “advertising and media management agencies” for publicity of Hyderabad Liberation Day from September 15 to September 17. Apart from usual publicity activities like radio and television campaigns and hoardings across Hyderabad, the scope of work in the RFP included “One twitter trending on 17th September 2022 from 08.30 A.M onwards”. Advertisements on social media sites and publicity through influencers were also included.
In response to the announcement, Telangana government’s digital media director Konatham Dileep had hit out at Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy. In a tweet, he said: “How low is too low @kishanreddybjp garu? the RFP issued by Director, CCRTI, @MinOfCultureGoI for Telangana Liberation Day celebrations, has put “Twitter Trending” in Scope of Work! So, these days Govt of India is officially tendering out Twitter Trends too? @TwitterIndia (sic)”.
