Ex-gratia to Journalists and Journalist Welfare Scheme.

In an answer to the question of whether the government proposes to formulate financial assistance program for those media personnel whose livelihood, health and income have been affected by Covid19 and the details of the package thereof, in the Lok sabha.

The Lok Sabha was informed“The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting approved a sum of Rs. 5.05 crore during 2020 and 2021 for financial assistance at a rate of Rs. 5 lakh/family to each of 101 families of journalists who died due to Covid19 under the Journalist Welfare Scheme (JWS).“

The JWS (Journalist Welfare Scheme) is a scheme under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which came into effect in the year 2013. The decisions of schemes are administered by a committee led by the Secretary of Information and Broadcasting. According to the scheme guidelines, the payment for the scheme shall be made from the budgetary allocations earmarked for the Journalist Welfare Scheme during the financial year.

In September 2021, the Government appointed a ten-member committee to review the existing guidelines of the scheme and make appropriate recommendations. The appointed Committee had suggested changes to include financial assistance for journalists in the case of extreme hardship.

Shri Anurag Thakur, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting had apprised Lok Sabha in December last year that, the main objective of the JWS is to give support to the Journalist and their families in extreme hardship, in a time-bound and transparent manner. The Minister submitted in the house that, an amount of Rs. 1.50 crore was approved during 2019-20 to states, Rs. 2.60 crore during 2020-21 and Rs. 6.06 crore during 2021-22.

A total of 123 applicants have availed the benefit of the JWS Scheme during 2020-21,2021-22. Uttar Pradesh with 138 beneficiaries has the highest beneficiary of scheme and West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Tripura with one beneficiary each, have the least.