Centre approves financial assistance to families of 67 journalists who lost their lives to Covid-19

New Delhi, May 27, 2021

The Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has approved a proposal to provide financial relief of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of 26 journalists who died due to COVID-19.

The proposal was made by the Journalist Welfare Scheme Committee headed by Amit Khare, Secretary, Information & Broadcasting.

An official press release said that the Ministry and the Press Information Bureau (PIB), under the guidance of Information & Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar, had compiled and collated the details of journalists who lost their lives due to the pandemic in the years 2020 and 2021 and started a special drive to provide assistance to their families under the Journalist Welfare Scheme.

In the financial year 2020-21, the Central Government provided such assistance to families of 41 journalists who died due to Covid, taking the total number to 67.

Members of the committee expressed their deep condolences to the families of the journalists affected due to Covid.

The Press Information Bureau pro-actively reached out to the families of many journalists who lost their lives to Covid-19 and also guided them about the scheme and filing of claims.

The committee also decided to hold JWS meetings on weekly basis so that applications for financial assistance under JWS can be processed expeditiously.

The committee today also considered applications of 11 families of those journalists who had passed away due to reasons other than Covid-19.

The JWS meeting was also attended by other members including Jaideep Bhatnagar, Principal Director General, PIB, and Vikram Sahay, Joint Secretary (I&B). Journalist representatives on the committee Santosh Thakur, Amit Kumar, Umeshwar Kumar and Sarjana Sharma were present in the meeting.

Journalists and their families can apply for assistance under the Journalist Welfare Scheme (JWS) through the PIB website here.

NNN