Kathmandu, August 1

The Federation of Nepali Journalists has decided to exert pressure on media houses to implement the provision of minimum salary.

A meeting of Working Journalists’ Interest Promotion Committee lead by Ram Prasad Dahal of the FNJ held in Kathmandu today stressed on the need to launch a fresh protest programme as both the government and the media houses have been reluctant in fulfilling their responsibilities in regards to implementation of the Working Journalists Act and minimum salary provision for working journalists.

“FNJ has been urging the government to implement the act and the media houses to respect the work of journalists time and again, but to no avail. Therefore, we are forced to launch protest, once again,” a press release issued by the umbrella organisation of the journalists said. It observed that working journalists were entitled to appointment letter, salary and facilities as stipulated by the act. According to FNJ, some journalists have been facing problems to obtain press accreditation card as concerned media houses failed to submit information such as designation of journalists and their monthly salary structure to the Department of Information and Broadcasting. “FNJ will pressurise the DoIB to make public the names of media houses that are yet to submit details of working journalists. Defaulting media houses will be forced to submit details of journalists,” the release warned.

FNJ has decided to call its central committee meeting to announce stringent protest programmes against defaulting media houses and receive anonymous complaints from journalists regarding non-implementation of minimum salary provision, either in verbal or via email, Twitter, Facebook and postal service.