Centre grants financial aid to families of 35 journalists who died of Covid

The Central Government has approved a proposal by the Journalist Welfare Scheme Committee, chaired by Apurva Chandra, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, to provide financial assistance to the families of 35 journalists who lost their lives due to Covid.

The families will be provided with assistance of up to Rs 5 lakh, said Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in a statement.

Additionally, the JSW Committee, also recommended assistance to two journalists suffering from permanent disability and to five others for their medical treatment of major ailments as per the JWS guidelines.  

The committee has approved total assistance of Rs 1.81 Cr during the meeting.

So far, assistance under the scheme has been provided to 123 families of the journalists who have lost their lives due to Covid-19. With the current approvals, in the current meeting, a total of 139 families have been provided assistance.

Under the scheme, the families of journalists are provided with financial assistance up to Rs 5 lakh in the event of the death of the journalist causing extreme hardship. Assistance is also provided to journalists in case of permanent disability, serious accidents and major health ailments.

During the last financial year, 134 journalists and their families were provided assistance under various categories amounting to Rs. 6.47 Crore.

The JWS committee meeting was attended by Shri Jaideep Bhatnagar, Principal Director General, PIB, Shri Vikram Sahay, Joint Secretary (I&B) along with the journalist representatives of the Committee, Sh. Santosh Thakur, Sh. Amit Kumar, Sh. Umeshwar Kumar, Ms Sarjana Sharma, Sh. Raj Kishore Tiwari and Sh. Ganesh Bisht.