Chandigarh, April 5 (): Chandigarh and Haryana Journalists Union (CHJU) met Chief Minister Nayab Singh and presented the demands of journalists before him and submitted a memorandum. CHJU has asked the Chief Minister to issue recognition to the journalists of daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, medium, small and local newspapers, TV and digital media regarding press recognition cards, citing the difficulties being faced by them regarding press recognition cards, as before, recognition on CA report. Calling the conditions of the new notification issued for grant of recognition and pension scheme as illogical, the notification has been demanded to be withdrawn. CHJU President Ram Singh Brar, State Chairman Balwant Takshak said in the memorandum given to Chief Minister Nayab Singh that some conditions have been added in the notification issued by the State Government while increasing the pension of journalists from Rs 10,000 per month to Rs 15,000. , which is not logical. The delegation also included Lalit Dhiman, Akhtar Farooqui, Puneet Bhaskar, Jagdish Asija, Rajesh Saluja, Vinod Sharma, Ravi Shankar Sharma, HS Chahal, Jagveer, Ghanshyam. Chief Minister Nayab Singh was also honored by the CHJU delegation by making him wear a turban and shawl.
CHJU urged the Chief Minister to withdraw the notification dated November 14, 2023. CHJU said that the state government had announced to provide cashless medical facilities to journalists like employees. Journalists have not yet received cashless medical cards. CHJU urged the Chief Minister to provide this facility to all the journalists and get the cashless medical cards of the journalists made soon and also get all the other pending demands of the journalists, including removing the kilometer limit on the free bus facility of the journalists, also implemented soon. CHJU said that according to the new notification issued by the department, only one member of the family will be able to get pension. That is, if both husband and wife are journalists, then if the husband starts pension first then the wife will not get the pension. There was no such restriction in the old rules. Apart from this, there was a provision in the old rules that if a journalist receiving pension dies, his life partner (wife or husband) will get the full pension. That is, at that time, upon the death of a journalist, his life partner used to get the full pension of Rs 10,000 per month. According to the new rules, now their pension has been reduced to Rs 7,500 instead of increasing from Rs 10 thousand to Rs 15 thousand. There is also a provision in these rules that if any case is registered against a journalist, his pension will be stopped, this condition is also not justified. Apart from this, instead of simplifying the rules for providing pension, they have now been made more stringent. There is also a provision in the new rules that PPP card is mandatory for journalists receiving pension. PPP cards are not being made for pension receiving journalists living in Chandigarh and other places. The CHJU delegation said that Chief Minister Naib Singh listened in detail to the demands of the journalists and the problems faced by them and his attitude in this regard was very positive.