Date:05/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/05/stories/2009010557380300.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

“Government committed to journalists’ welfare”

Staff Reporter

Anam Ramnarayan Reddy

VISAKHAPATNAM: Minister for Information and Public Relations Anam Ramnarayan Reddy on Sunday said the Congress government was totally committed to the welfare of journalists.

Speaking as chief guest at the valedictory of two-day State executive meeting of AP Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ) here, he said Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy had cleared a proposal to divert 1 per cent of funds being released to the media. This would fetch about Rs.1 crore a year. The welfare fund was set up with a corpus amount of Rs.50 lakhs and the interest accrued on it would be spent on welfare of journalists.

Mr. Reddy said the awards for outstanding journalists, abandoned by the erstwhile Telugu Desam regime, would be given with retrospective effect from 2004. The awards would involve an amount of Rs.67 lakhs. He said house sites would be given to all the working journalists as per the orders issued by the Chief Minister. “House sites were given three times in the past only during the Congress rule,” he stated.

He said the number of accredited journalists would come down by half once scrutiny was done by the district level committees.