Bangalore:21/08/23
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah assured that appropriate action will be taken to solve the problems of journalists and fulfill their demands.He spoke after accepting the appeal by holding a meeting of office-bearers of journalists’ organizations at Chief Minister’s Home Office Krishna on Monday.
Free bus pass facility for rural journalists, advertisement policy, advertisement discrimination, fare revision etc. were requested for fulfillment of various demands. Journalists should be covered under Yashasvani Yojana. Rigid conditions for pension of journalists should be relaxed and simplified. Shivananda Tagaduru, the state president of Karnataka Working Journalists Association (KUWJ) demanded that the compensation should be paid through the treasury as before.
Grants should be given for the construction of journalists’ houses at the taluk level. It was requested that local bodies, municipalities, city councils and metropolitan corporations should provide plots/houses at 50% discounted rates to journalists. 100 crore should be earmarked for the welfare and development fund of journalists. Tagadoor demanded that district, regional and state level newspapers and media should advertise regularly.
Advertisements should be handled by news departments and government agencies as before. 2 crores earmarked in the previous budget for press distributors has not been used. The KUWJ requested that it should be managed by the Labor Department and that the press distributors’ welfare fund should be increased.
Chief Minister’s Media Adviser KV Prabhakar, Information and Publicity Department Secretary N. Jayaram, Commissioner Hemant Nimbalkar, Journalists’ Association office bearers Karnataka Working Journalists’ Voice (KWJV) State President Bangle Mallikarjun and District President Bhanuprakash from Bangalore Rural Unit and Guruprasad from Nelamangala Taluk Unit participated in the meeting
