Maharashtra govt. has given administrative approval to Acharya Balshastri Jambhekar Sanman Yojana 2019. This pension scheme will provide benefits to all the senior journalists in the state. This pension scheme for senior journalists in Maharashtra was a long pending demand of the entire media fraternity.
Previously, the state govt. has made a budgetary provision of Rs. 15 crore for the successful implementation of this senior journalist pension scheme. Maharashtra govt. has announced this scheme on 2 February 2019 in view of the rising demands from various quarters.
As per the official Government Order (GO) issued by the government, the Acharya Balshastri Jambhekar Sanman Yojana is going to be implemented by the board of trustees of “Shankarrao Chavan Suvarna Mahotsavi Patrakar Kalyan Nidhi”.
Maharashtra Acharya Balshastri Jambhekar Sanman Yojana
Under the Maharashtra Pension Scheme for Senior Journalists, the state govt. is going to provide pension to all experienced media persons. Under Acharya Balshastri Jambhekar Sanman Yojana, the pension amount has not yet been finalized by the state government. All the working journalists, photographers, editors of newspapers, other news broadcast media and freelancers would be eligible.
Moreover, all the eligible people must have attained the age of 60 years. In addition to this, the eligible people must have completed the 30 years in profession. All the senior journalists have to be accredited for minimum 10 years. These people must have journalism as their only source of income. Except the Employee Provident Fund (EPF), the applicant should not be getting pension from any other source.
Accordingly, all the accredited journalists with 10 years of experience who practice journalism for livelihood will be eligible for the pension scheme. It is important to note that one of the eligibility criteria makes it mandatory that the applicant should not be a Income Tax payee. The pension would only be given to the beneficiaries only during their lifetime and not to their kin after their death.
In order to avail the benefits of pension scheme for senior journalists in Maharashtra, all the beneficiaries will have to submit the necessary documents to district information office. All the submitted documents would be scrutinized by the committee of Directorate of Information and Public Relations. This would be solely at the committee’s discretion to decide on granting pension to all the non accredited journalists who fulfills the eligibility criteria.