Ministry forces Media Houses for facility of staff

Development Committee of the Legislature Parliament has issued directive to the Ministry of Information and Communication to immediately take action against media houses that have not implemented the Minimum Wage Act. The Committee issued the directive to the Ministry after issue about working journalists' difficulty due to lax in implementation of the Working Journalists Act was raised amid discussion among stakeholders in the meeting of the Committee's office in Singhdurbar today. The Committee also directed the Communication Ministry and Information Department to identify real working journalists and carry out monitoring at media houses that have not implemented the Working Journalists' Act and Working Journalists' Regulatory, and submit its detail to the Committee within the next three months.
President of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists FNJ Dr. Mahendra Bista noted that the Working Journalists Act itself had become an 'unclaimed law' as even the government and media houses were not serious in implementation of the same. Representatives of Nepal Press Union, Press Chautari, Association of Revolutionary Journalists, Minimum Wage Determination Committee, Department of Information, Press Council Nepal and Communication Ministry among others have opined that the implementation of the Act is possible only through the assistance of everyone including working journalists, media operators and government among others, and that everyone had to be serious towards the same.