Tamil Nadu government on Thursday constituted a Journalists’ Welfare Board comprising of officials, owners of media houses, and journalists to ensure benefits reach the concerned on time. The formation of a separate board for the welfare of journalists was announced by Information and Publicity Minister M P Saminathan during the Demand for Grants in 2021.
The Tamil Nadu Journalists’ Welfare Board will have six senior officials from various departments and six representatives from media houses and journalists. The board will integrate schemes for working journalists and also provide welfare assistance and render support.
The board headed by Saminathan will consist of secretaries from the departments of finance, revenue and disaster administration, housing, labour welfare, land administration commissioner and Director of Information and Public Relations (DIPR).
The non-official members of the board are Sivanthi Adithyan Balasubramanian of the Daily Thanthi group, and R M R Ramesh, publisher of Dhinakaran owned by the Maran brothers. B Kolappan of The Hindu, S Gavaskar (Theekathir), M Ramesh (Puthiya Thalaimurai), and Lakshmi Subramanian (The Week) are the other non-official members.
A Government Order signed by Mahesan Kasirajan, Secretary, Tamil Development & Information Department, said the Journalists’ Pension Committee is being dissolved and merged with the new board.