Government approves financial help to 67 families of journalists who died of Covid

The Union government has approved a proposal to provide financial assistance to the families of 26 more journalists who lost their lives due to Covid-19 in the current financial year, and the dependents of each of these journalists will get financial relief of Rs. 5 lakh under the Journalists Welfare program. Scheme (JWS) of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the government said in a statement Thursday.

The government has approved the committee’s proposal “to provide financial relief of Rs 5 lakh to each of the families of 26 journalists who died due to Covid-19” in the fiscal year 2021-22, starting in April. In the last financial year, assistance was provided to the families of 41 journalists, according to the statement.

In a statement, the government said the families of 67 journalists have received financial assistance since last year.

The JWS committee, which seeks to provide assistance under a central scheme to the families of journalists who died due to Covid-19, will meet weekly to process cases expeditiously, it was reported.

The sources said that, unlike other schemes for journalists, an accreditation from the Press Information Office is not needed to take advantage of the benefits of the JWS.

The statement mentioned that in a “suo motu move,” the I&B Ministry had “compiled and collated the details of journalists who lost their lives due to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and began a special campaign to provide assistance to their families in the framework of the Well-being of Journalists “. Scheme”.

“The Press Information Office proactively reached out to the families of many journalists who lost their lives due to Covid-19 and also guided them on the scheme and the filing of claims,” ​​he stated. The committee has decided to hold JWS meetings every week “so that applications for financial assistance under JWS can be processed quickly,” the government said.

The committee, headed by I&B Secretary Amit Khare, also includes GDP Senior Director General Jaideep Bhatnagar, along with other senior officials and media representatives.