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The Union government has approved a proposal to provide financial assistance to families of 26 more journalists who lost their lives to Covid-19 in the ongoing financial year, and dependents of each of these journalists will get financial relief of Rs 5 lakh under the Journalist Welfare Scheme (JWS) of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the government said in a statement on Thursday.
The government has approved the committee’s proposal “to provide financial relief of Rs 5 lakh to each of the families of 26 journalists who died due to Covid-19” in 2021-22 financial year, beginning April. In the last financial year, assistance was given to families of 41 journalists, the statement said.
In a statement, the government said that families of 67 journalists have been given financial assistance since last year.
The JWS committee, which is looking to provide assistance under a Central scheme to families of journalists who have died due to Covid-19, will meet weekly to process the cases expeditiously, it was informed.
Sources said that unlike other schemes for journalists, a Press Information Bureau accreditation is not needed to avail benefits under the JWS.
The statement mentioned that in a “suo motu move”, the I&B Ministry had “compiled and collated details of journalists who lost their lives due to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and started a special drive to provide assistance to their families under the Journalist Welfare Scheme”.
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