Ministry of I&B reconstitutes CPAC, makes it eight-member body

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting today said it has reconstituted the Central Press Accreditation Committee (CPAC), which issues Press Information Bureau (PIB) cards to journalists, making it leaner from a 22-member to an eight-member body.

A P Frank Noronha, Principal Director General, PIB will be the ex-officio chairperson of the reconstituted committee which will have seven others as the members, according to an official release.

Besides five active journalists, the committee will have representatives from the Press Council of India and the News Broadcasters Association.

The tenure of the CPAC will be for a period of two years from the date of its first meeting, the release said.

The last committee was formed in October 2015, which had 11 representatives of various associations, besides Noronha being the ex-officio chairperson. It had 10 other journalists from various news organisations as its members.

The ministry also reconstituted the Journalist Welfare Committee. It will have the secretary and joint secretary of the ministry and the principal director general of the PIB as its official members, the release said.

For the first time, six journalists were made members of the committee as non-official members of the committee on Journalist Welfare Scheme, it added.

The term of non-official members of the committee will be for a period of two years.

The ministry had recently increased the provision for journalist welfare scheme by five-folds to Rs 1 crore for 2018-19 from Rs 20 lakh in 2017-18.

The scheme aims to provide one time ex-gratia relief on urgent basis to journalists and their families on the event of extreme hardship.

The financial assistance available under this scheme is up to Rs 5 lakh to the family on account of death of journalist, up to Rs 5 lakh to the journalists in case of permanent disability, up to Rs 3 lakh towards the cost of treatment of major ailments which were not covered under the central government health scheme (CGHS).