Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Ahmad Chaudhry has said that the government will introduce a new digital policy soon to equip the media with modern technology and facilities.
Talking to a delegation of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and Punjab Union of Journalists (PUJ) during his visit to the Pakista
n Television (PTV) Centre Lahore on Saturday, the minister said that a state-of-the-art media university would be established by merging the academies of PTV, Radio Pakistan and Information Ministry.
He further said that it was the responsibility of government to side with the poor and “we are standing with you people.” There was a great human resource in the field of journalism, which, however, lacked skills and the government would work to equip them with skills and expertise in respective fields at the media university, he added.
The minister reiterated that work was underway for the issuance of health cards to working journalists to ensure the provision of free-of-cost medical facilities of up to Rs 550,000 to them.
Talking about the advertisements, Fawad Chaudhry said that the government wanted to abolish its monopoly on media advertisements. “Like the past governments, we cannot spend billions of rupees on media advertisements,” he said
, adding that the print media, however, would not be left to die on that count. He further said there was a positive deve
lopment regarding DTH licenses.
The minister said that the names of three judges had been proposed for the Wage Board Award and Pakistan Med
ia Regulatory Authority would be established so that all mo
des of media would have solution to their problems at one place.
President PFUJ Rana Azeem, Salman Ghani, Habib Akram, Imran Khan, Shehzad Butt, Aamir Sohail and others journalists were present at the occasion.
Published in Daily Times, September 16th 2018.
