39 families of journalists who died of COVID-19 to get Rs 5 lakhs each from Centre

NEW DELHI: The Central Government on Monday approved a proposal of Journalist Welfare Committee (JWC) under the Press Information Bureau (PIB) to provide financial relief of Rs 5 lakhs each to 39 families of the journalists who have passed away due to the Covid 19. Journalists from across India will be covered under the scheme.

For this purpose, the Narendra Modi government has allocated an additional fund of Rs 1.5 crores in the Journalist Welfare Committee.

Decisions were made in the meeting of the JWC held on Monday under Information and Broadcasting Secretary Amit Khare.

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Additional Secretary Neerja Shekhar, Joint Secretary Shri Vikram Sahay and PIB Principle DG Shri K S Dhatwalia were present at the meeting.

Santosh Thakur, Member of the JWC, thanked PM Modi and Minister of I&B Shri Prakash Javadekar for this noble initiative. "The JWC also discussed other welfare measures for the journalists which include health insurance and life insurance schemes," he said.

The issue of including journalists across India in the special Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme was also discussed in the meeting.

Santosh Thakur announced that, through the JWC, journalists who have a serious illness or have been become handicapped while on duty can also apply for financial assistance from the government.

For financial assistance, family members of journalists who have died while on duty can also apply. On its website, the PIB has given a link where a journalist or his family members can write to the government for assistance.