New Delhi. 10 may 2020. The Central Government has amended the ‘Journalist Welfare Scheme’ to strengthen the fourth pillar of democracy. This has become applicable to all journalists across the country. In fact, this scheme was implemented by the Central Government in February 2013 for the welfare of journalists. Now it has been amended, which all journalists will be able to take advantage of.
If a Journalist dies or becomes disabled, then under this scheme, the Central Government will provide assistance of Rs 5 lakh to its dependents. At the same time, for the treatment also, the journalist will be given assistance of Rs 5 lakh from the government.
A committee has also been constituted for the eligibility of the scheme, whose patron will be the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting. At the same time, the Secretary of the Department is the Chairman, Principal Director General, AS & AF, members of the Joint Secretary Committee. At the same time, the deputy secretary or director of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is the member convenor.
It will be the job of this committee to consider the application of the victim journalist or their family members and accordingly decide to give financial assistance. One good thing under this scheme is that there is no binding on it to be a sanctioned journalist from the central or state government.
The scheme has been applied to journalists from all over the country falling under the category of journalist under “Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employes (Condition of Service) and Miscellaneous Provision Act 1955”, a 1955 act relating to journalists.
Web and TV journalists will also benefit
At the same time, television and web journalists will also be able to take advantage of this scheme. After the news papers, there was a revolution in the television world and TV news channels started, whereas now, the era of web journalism has come and journalism is being done on the web as well.
Along with this, the editor of all news papers, sub-editors, reporters, photographers, cameraman, photo journalists, freelance journalists, part-time reporters and their dependents are also covered under the scheme. The condition of taking advantage of this is that he has served as a journalist for at least 5 years. Under the scheme, it has also been informed that under which circumstances the assistance of one to five lakhs will be given to the victim journalists or their families.
For more information – http://pib.nic.in/prs/JWSguidelinesEnglish.pdf?Sel=17&PSel=2 can go to this link. Or the Director General (Media and Communications), Press Information Bureau, ‘A’ Wing, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi-110001 can also be contacted.
Journalists or their families who need help can send their applications on the prescribed form to the given address. A sample of this form of three pages can be downloaded from the Press Information Bureau (Press Information Bureau) website pib.nic.in.
