Centre grants financial assistance of up to Rs 5 lakh for kin of deceased, disabled journalists

The Central Government has approved a proposal of the Journalist Welfare Scheme Committee headed by Apurva Chandra, Secretary, Ministry of information and Broadcasting, to provide financial relief to the families of 35 journalists who have lost their lives. This includes 16 families of journalists who died due to Covid-19 under the Journalist Welfare Scheme (JWS), according to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. The families will be provided with assistance up to Rs 5 lakhs.

The JWS Committee also recommended assistance to two journalists suffering from permanent disability and to five journalists 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.

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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 Jaideep Bhatnagar, Principal Director General, PIB, Vikram Sahay, Joint Secretary (I&B) along with the journalist representatives of the Committee, Santosh Thakur, Amit Kumar, Umeshwar Kumar, Sarjana Sharma, Raj Kishore Tiwari and Ganesh Bisht. 

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