Islamabad   -   The Federal Government firmly stands for the promotion of print media and the issues confronted by newspapers will be amicably addressed,” said Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar here on Wednesday. Tarar was addressing a meeting of the Executive Committee of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society at Islamabad chaired by its President Nazafreen Saigol Lakhani. APNS Secretary General Sarmad Ali welcomed the minister and apprised him about the problems being faced by the print media.

These included long pending notification of 35 percent increase in the government advertisement rates approved by the prime minister in his last tenure. He reminded that the prime minister during his last meeting with APNS office-bearers had given an assurance that an amount of Rs 500 million will be released to newspapers before Eid as initial payment of outstanding dues of the print media against advertising released by the federal government. However, the print media was paid Rs 46 million only. The APNS office-bearers also explained the hardships faced by members in getting renewal of their registration by the Press Registrar office due to a highly complicated procedure practised by the Press Registrar and requested that the procedure be made hassle-free and that the registration be made one time as stipulated in the law. The APNS members requested that the regional quota be implemented in letter and spirit and no publications other than regional newspapers be given advertisements from this quota. They also requested that in the forthcoming budget GST, customs and import duties on imports of newspaper consumables like ink and printing plates be exempted.

Atta Tarrar assured that the issues being faced by the newspaper industry will be addressed to the satisfaction of the print media. He stated that he would take up the issue of increase in the government advertisement rates with the Finance Ministry for its incorporation in the next fiscal budget. He reiterated that the Ministry of Information had disbursed an overall amount of Rs1.3 billion to media outlets before Eid. He stated that he had asked the ministry to evolve a mechanism for future budgetry arrangements for payment of advertisement expenses. He assured that the old liabilities will be cleared in the first quarter of next financial year. Tarrar proposed a joint committee of Information Ministry and APNS to evolve a system for registration of newspapers. He stated that the newspapers played a pivotal role in countering fake news and disinformation. In order to promote newspaper readership, the federal minister stated that he would ask the Information Ministry to suggest to the Minsitry of Aviation and other goverment ministries and departments to subscribe to newspapers as in the past. In this respect he proposed to initiate a pilot project with the Ministry of Education to promote newspaper readership at the schools and college levels in the ICT.

Earlier, the Executive Committee, on the recommendations of the Advertising Committee, granted provisional accreditation to M/s Starcrest Communications (Pvt) Ltd Karachi, M/s SAP Communications (Pvt) Ltd Islamabad and M/s URS Digi ( pvt) Ltd Islamabad. The members expressed condolence to Ahmed Baloch publisher Daily Kainat Bahawalpur on the sad demise of his mother.