The Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) is the nodal agency of the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

for advertising by various Ministries and organisations of Government of India, including public sector undertakings and autonomous bodies. At the time of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the Government of India asked the leading advertisement agencies to form a consortium and set up a publicity unit in

Shimla Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, List of renamed Indian cities and states#Himachal Pradesh, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the States and union territories of India, northern Indian state of Himachal Prade ...

to handle war propaganda, tackle rumour mongering, put out messages about black-outs and handle recruitment to the armed forces. When the war ended, this consortium was converted into its present form. It was established in 1955 and has its headquarters in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

and regional offices in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

and

Guwahati Guwahati (, ; formerly rendered Gauhati, ) is the biggest city of the Indian state of Assam and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the ...

. Its work is further facilitated by two regional distribution centres at

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

and

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

. The Directorate includes 4 Campaign wings, an Advertising wing for print, Audio-Visual (AV) wing, New Media & Personal Media wing, Exhibition wing, Mass mailing wing, Outdoor publicity wing, research wing, distribution wing and language wing in addition to an audio visual publicity cell.

Director/DG/PDG

*Sh L R Nair 01.1o1955 to 14.05.1963 *Sh M L Bhardwaj *Sh B Mukhopadhyay * Brig.R Shreenivasan * SH H J D Penha * Sh K K Nair * Sh P R Chona * Sh N Sethi * Sh R Raina * Sh B C Bhatt * ShP B Bharthakur * Sh G Venkatraman * Ms Shahla Haider * Sh S Narendra

External links

* Advertising agencies of India Government agencies of India Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India) 1955 establishments in India Government agencies established in 1955 {{India-gov-stub