LAHORE                   -                 Provincial Minister for Information Fayyaz ul Hassan Chohan announced tax exemptions for media houses in Punjab in a press conference on Friday.

He said Punjab government had decided to give tax exemptions to media houses and clear their pending dues so that they did not have to face financial losses amidst the ongoing virus that had brought the country to a dead halt..

Provincial minister Fayyaz ul Hassan Chohan expressed hope that the impact of the tax exemption and payment of dues would also reach the media workers.

Providing the details,  PunjabMinister for Information said that the government was going to bring a special assistance package for journalists.

Any journalist that gets infected with the virus will receive Rs100,000 and in case he passes away, his family will receive Rs 1 million; his widow will be given a Rs 10,000 monthly allowance as well.

He also said that newspaper sellers association will receive safety equipment from tomorrow and 10 journalists will be awarded excellence awards for their work.

Fayyaz ul Hassan Chohan said that the coming 22 days were going to be critical in Pakistan’s fight against coronavirus and the labour class was the most vulnerable in the prevailing situation.

He reiterated Prime Minister Imran Khan’s message of prevention by precaution was the only way to stay protected from this pandemic.

The Minister said that the number of cases in the country was sharply increasing but the government and all its departments were taking each possible step they could to slow the spread of the virus. He urged the public to self isolate in their homes unless absolutely essential.

He criticized the opposition for not standing with the government during this tough time.

He said that the opposition was busy in political point scoring instead of joining hands with the government to work for the relief of the people.

He said that the public had no trust in the opposition parties which was why no one had donated even a single penny to Shehbaz Sharif’s fund, but people had responded very positively to Imran Khan’s plea and philanthropists were contributing generously to the fund created by the prime minister to fight the coronavirus.