ISLAMABAD, FEB 8 (DNA) -– The Pakistan News Agencies Council (PNAC) has expressed serious concern over stoppage of budgeted annual grant to news agencies adding the government action has created grave financial problems for these agencies.

The PNAC meeting, which held on Friday, presided over by Tahir Khan Vice President, further said that as per practice the government had allocated grant for the news agencies in the budget 2018-19 but the incumbent government has failed to release this grant.

The PNAC members have held a number of meetings with the Federal Information Secretary and other concerned officials of the Information Ministry and requested them to release the grant as news agencies were facing multiple economic hardships due to the stoppage, nevertheless all such efforts proved futile.

The meeting expressed disappointment over the nonchalance attitude of Secretary Information Shafqat Jalil saying news agencies were expecting the Secretary to take up the matter on priority.

 The meeting also decided to raise the issue at all relevant forums and take on board various representative bodies such as APNS and CPNE. Besides, various legal options shall also be weighed in this regard.

The meeting participants were unanimous on the point that this was another big reason that journalists working with news agencies were losing their jobs in Pakistan.

Those who attended the meeting included Tahir Khan (NNI), Tariq Sumair (INP), Shakil Turabi (Saba), Qayyum Farooqui (ANN), Aslam Khan (Internews), Adnan Iftikhar (PPI) and Ansar M Bhatti (DNA). ONLINE was also represented in the meeting.=DNA

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