The speaker of the Telangana Assembly, Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, today said that it was only fair to include the journalists of the state in the category of frontline Covid-19 warriors.
He made these remarks after learning about the many problems being faced by the journalists from the Telangana Union of Working Journalists Deputy General Secretary Vishnudas Srikanth, who had gone to meet the Speaker at his residence to apprise him of the same.
Srikanth told him that the aid being provided by the TRS-led state government to the journalists affected by Covid-19 was not adequate to meet their expenses, and that the health cards issued by the government were not helping the journalists avail themselves of subsidised healthcare either.
Responding to the complaints, Srinivas Reddy said, "The journalists of Telangana should also get all the facilities that are being given to the other frontline warriors, including health and sanitation workers, during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic."
He urged the government to take the steps necessary to protect the scribes from any health risks during the current pandemic.
The alleged lack of government help for the journalists is likely to have left many of them disappointed as IT and Industries Minister K T Rama Rao had
recently promised the scribe community that the TRS government would work to resolve the problems being faced by them. He had even said that the government would provide house sites to all of them soon.