Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Aug 6: Advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar reviewed the functioning of Department of Information & Public Relations (DIPR) at a meeting convened with the senior officers of the department, here today.
The meeting was attended by Secretary Information Sarmad Hafeez, Special Secretary Information Narinder Singh Bali, Joint Director Information (HQs) Saajid Yehaya Naqash, Joint Director Information Jammu, Naresh Kumar, Joint Director Information Kashmir, Mohammed Ashraf Hakak, Deputy Directors, Vidhushi Kapoor (KBI New Delhi), Rakesh Dubey and Atul Gupta and other senior officers of the department.
Secretary Information made a detailed presentation regarding organizational structure, working of the department and the major activities being carried out by various wings of DIPR at state, divisional and district level.
The Advisor was apprised about the functional profile of all wings of the department including Public Relations which is mainly responsible for highlighting and disseminating the activities of the Government through various means of media to the public. Regarding digitization of archival record including old publications which is lying with the department, it was given out that the process is underway and soon the records would be digitized for future reference. The Advisor sought note on activities being carried out by Research and Reference wing of the Department.
K Vijay Kumar while appreciating the efforts of DIPR for providing opportunities to the students/professionals in the sphere of capacity building asked for continuing the same kind of activities on regular basis.
The Advisor was informed about the details of Advertisement Budget provided for payment to the media against publication of government advertisements. It was informed that from Rs 22 crore in 2014-15 the advertisement budget has been increased to Rs 35 crore for the current fiscal and the Advertisement rates have been also increased by more than 50% by the government last year.
The issues including implementation of Journalists Welfare Scheme and Health Insurance Cover for journalists were also discussed in the meeting. While getting informed about the ways of sharing information to the media, he asked the PR Wing to focus on dissemination of information through digital media.
Addressing the officers, K Vijay Kumar said that the department is mandated for doing very important tasks and it is required that all the wings of the department must be mobilized while adopting latest technologies to further improve its efficiency. |
