The Directorate of Information and Public Relations is seeking suggestions/views of the stakeholders regarding formulation of guidelines for empanelment of the local news agencies for monthly subscription by the Department. According to the Director Information, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, the move has been necessitated in view of the fact that a large number of such News Agencies have come up in the state over a period of time and are regularly approaching the Department of Information offering their services to the Government against monthly subscription charges. “Almost all these news agencies claim to have a wide reach as, according to them, the news bulletins circulated by them daily are being widely carried by most of the newspapers and periodicals in the State,” he said.
“However, in the absence of any proper mechanism of registration for news agencies, as is in vogue for the newspapers and periodicals in the State, the Department of Information is not in a position to ascertain the credentials of such news agencies to enlist them for monthly subscription,” he said and added that the Government has now decided to work out modalities and set some basic guidelines/benchmarks for empanelment of such News Agencies for subscription by the Department so that only genuine and professionally-run news agencies get the requisite financial support.Dr Shahid said, once finalized by the Government, these guidelines/benchmarks would be applicable to those local news agencies as well which are already on the subscription list of the Department of Information. He said the stakeholders including individuals/organizations/media-persons and others can mail their suggestions/views, outlining the mechanism to be put in place by the Government for registration/operation/subscription of the News Agencies in the State by or before 31 December 2016 on [email protected].