Government approves Rs 5 lakh financial assistance to Journalists who succumbed to Covid 19
After the repeated demands of various journalists organisations in Delhi and at the pan India level to grant adequate financial compensation to journalists including equating them as front line warriors as doctors, paramedics and police personnel as the scribes also work in the midst of the people n risky situations during dreaded pandemic times risking their lives n succumbing to Covid, the union government has approved financial assistance to over 67 journalists who’d succumbed to Covid 19 during the last one and a half year.
Under the union government’s new initiative under the Journalists Welfare Scheme of ministry of Information and Broadcasting each family of the deceased journalist will be sanctioned a consolidated amount of Rs. Five lakhs. The new committee constituted by the ministry of I n B will expedite the cases of deceased journalists during the Covid 19 times, every week in order to help the bereaved families expeditiously.
In a suo-moto move, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Press Information Bureau under the guidance of Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Sh. Prakash Javadekar, had compiled and collated the details of journalists who lost their lives due to the pandemic in the years 2020 & 2021 and started a special drive to provide assistance to their families under the Journalist Welfare Scheme.
On Thursday, the Central Government approved a proposal of Journalist Welfare Scheme Committee headed by the secretary of I & B Amit Khare, in order to provide financial relief of Rs.5 lakh to each of the families of 26 journalists who died due to Covid-19.
In the financial year 2020-21, the Central Government provided such assistance to 41 families of the journalists deceased due to Covid taking the total number to 67. The Committee expressed their deep condolences to the families of the journalists affected due to Covid.
According to the Press Information Bureau it pro-actively reached out to the families of many journalists who lost their lives to Covid-19 and also guided them about the scheme and filing of claims.
The committee also decided to hold JWS meetings on weekly basis so that applications for financial assistance under JWS can be processed expeditiously.
The Committee today also considered applications of 11 families of those journalists who had passed away due to reasons other than Covid-19.
The JWS meeting was also attended by other members including Jaideep Bhatnagar, Principal Director General, PIB, Vikram Sahay, Joint Secretary (I&B). The Journalist representatives of the Committee Santosh Thakur, Amit Kumar, Umeshwar Kumar, Sarjana Sharma were also present in the meeting.
According to the Journalists Welfare Committe and their families can apply for assistance under the Journalist Welfare Scheme (JWS) through the PIB website. There are reports that more than three hundred journalists have succumbed to Covid 19 though the figure may variate further.
Pic : The news minute
