House Committee okays working journalist bill
The parliamentary committee for environment, communication and technology finalised the Working Journalists Bill on Wednesday which will be tabled at the session of the parliament on Wednesday itself.
According to the parliament's task schedule for Wednesday, the bill will be passed by this evening.
The bill was finalised after the meeting of the committee held this morning approved the report presented by taskforce led by MP Raghuji Pant.
According to the new bill, media houses will not be allowed to keep more than 15 percent of the employees on contract basis, who will also be entitled to provident fund and other facilities being given to permanent journalists. Likewise, media houses will have to cover the expenses incurred by the journalists due to accident or loss or destructions of media equipment.
A 13-member committee will be formed to look into the issue of salary to the journalists, which will be led by a government appointed media expert.
The media houses need to spend at least 1 percent of their annual income for capacity building activities of the journalists, the bill says.
Speaking to Nepal FM, Pant said that upon adoption of the bill, the journalists will have job guarantee. He suggested reviewing the implementation of the bill every two years. nepalnews.com ia Aug 08 07
