Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Tuesday positively responded to all the genuine requirements of the Information and Public Relations Department and directed the Finance Department to release the funds accordingly.
The Chief Minister on Tuesday held a detailed review meeting on the issues of Information and Public Relations department with Ministers and top officials at the State Secretariat. Finance Minister Anam Ramnarayan Reddy, I&PR Minister D K Aruna, Chief Secretary Pankaj Dwivedi and other senior officials attended the meeting. I&PR Commissioner R Chandravadan explained the issues of the department to the Chief Minister.
The Chief Minister directed the Finance Department to release Rs 1 crore immediately towards the corpus fund of Journalists Welfare Fund. The State Government has already provided Rs 1.05 crore corpus fund for Journalists Welfare Fund. As far as the Health Insurance to Journalists is concerned, the Chief Minister also agreed to increase the government’s share of Rs 234.90 lakh (covering 11,985 journalists) to Rs 254.80 lakh during 2012-13 to cover 13,000 journalists.
The Chief Minister also agreed to the proposal for strengthening staff at the District level and recruit 68 publicity assistants and half of them by outsourcing and half by direct recruitment. He agreed to the proposal of routing all advertisements of various departments through I&PR. It was also decided that Media Accreditation and other committees would be constituted at the earliest.
Kiran Kumar Reddy positively responded to the proposal to modernise the public address system with latest technologies in all the districts in a phased manner and also provide vehicles to the DPROs in all districts.
The Chief Minister advised the officials of the department to go in for massive campaigns though Radio and Cable channels against all social evils like illiteracy, Health issues and campaign against consumption of liquor etc. He said success stories of various government programmes should be highlighted. He suggested that messages about all the government flagship programmes and its success should be taken to people and I&PR has the biggest role in this. (INN)