Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami issued guidelines to Secretary Information on the seven-point demand of journalists.
Dehradun. Listed news portal journalists in Uttarakhand met Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami at Dehradun Secretariat today under the leadership of senior journalist Manoj Ishtwal. During this, Secretary Information Abhinav Kumar, Director General Information Ranveer Singh Chauhan and other officers were present. In this meeting, the seven-point demands related to journalistic interests were discussed in detail.
CM Dhami’s consent on seven-point demands
Expressing verbal consent to all the demands, Chief Minister Dhami directed Secretary Information Abhinav Kumar to take action on the seven-point demand by forwarding the demand letter. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that the interests of news portal journalists will not be allowed to be affected in any way. A better policy will be made in this regard soon. Priority will be given to news portal journalists working in the state. CM Dhami directed the officials to give priority to the GCST payers in the state.
Government should protect the interests of journalists – Arun Sharma
Greeting the Chief Minister, senior journalist Arun Sharma, while placing various issues of journalists in front of Chief Minister Dhami, said that our state is also untouched by the way the trend of social media is being widely publicized all over the world. No, and from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Chief Ministers of various states, the importance of news portals has been adopted.
Manoj Ishtwal said policy made for news portal
Senior journalist Manoj Ishtwal has said that the information department should monitor every news portal so that it can be proved that with how much priority we are taking up the development plans of the government as journalists! Also, whenever a policy is made regarding news portals, at least one journalist from every organization should be included in it and its outline should be considered.
On this occasion, senior journalist Pankaj Panwar and other journalists also discussed the interests of journalists and development plans of the state. He also asked the Chief Minister to take prompt action on the demands of the journalists. Journalists handed over a seven-point demand letter to the Chief Minister. Senior journalists Manoj Ishtwal, Arun Sharma, Chandan S. Cantura, Pankaj Panwar, Ratan Negi, Sonu Kumar, Dr. BP Balodi, Rajneesh Saini, Rakesh Bijalwan, Dhanshyam Joshi, Ajit Kamboj, Akash Gaur, Amit Amoli, Ashish Negi, Raman Jaiswal, Awadhesh Nautiyal etc. were present.
A look at the 7 point demands of news portal journalists:
1- Like TV channels and newspapers, the Information Department should stop the contract system by forming a policy for news portals as soon as possible. The representative of our organization should also be included to make suggestions in the policy making committee.
2- Till the policy is not formed by the Information Department and the tender process continues, in such a situation, the tender process should be kept smooth by fixing the minimum rate of advertisement like TV channels and newspapers by the department. In the previous tenders, it has been seen that some people deliberately pay such low rates that there is a conflict between the government and the journalists. Therefore, only after fixing the minimum rate of advertisement of various categories of news portals like TV channels and newspapers, the information department should start the tender process.
3- Until the policy is formed, instead of including the previously listed news portals in the tender process again, they should be retained in the predetermined listing. Tender process should be adopted only for induction of new news portals.
4- Only news portals working in Uttarakhand should be included in the tender process. Such news portals outside the state (whose address in voter ID card and other documents are outside the state) should not be included in the tender process.
5- Every month a respectable amount should be advertised to the news portals listed in all categories by the Information Department. In the last 6 months, by giving mere amount in the name of advertisement to the listed news portals, the department has just made up the money.
6-News portals writing special articles about the activities of the Chief Minister and various schemes related to public interest should be included in the ambit of special advertisement. Special advertisements should be issued from time to time along with general advertisements.
7- State/district recognition facility should be provided to the editors of news portals listed in the information department on the basis of their journalistic experience.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has directed the officers of the Information Department to take immediate action on all seven-point important points.
