HYDERABAD: The Chief Minister Mr N Kiran Kumar Reddy today positively responded to all the genuine requirements of the Information and Public Relations Department and directed the Finance Department to release the funds accordingly.

The Chief Minister today held a detailed review meeting on the issues of I&PR department with Ministers and top officials at Secretariat. Finance Minister       Sri. Anam Ramnarayan Reddy, I&PR Minister Smt. .D K Aruna, Chief Secretary Mr Pankaj Dwivedi, Principal Secretary, Finance, Mr P V Ramesh, Commissioner, I&PR, Mr R V Chandravadan, Director, I&PR, Mr A. Subhash Goud and other officials attended the meeting.  Commissioner Mr Chandravadan explained the issues of the department to the Chief Minister.

The Chief Minister directed the Finance Department to release Rs.1 crore immediately towards the corpus fund of Journalists Welfare Fund. The State Government has already provided Rs. 1.05 crore corpus fund for Journalists Welfare Fund. As far as the Health Insurance to Journalists is concerned, the Chief Minister also agreed for increasing the Government share of Rs.234.90 lakhs (covering 11,985 journalists) to Rs.254.80 lakhs during 2012-13 to cover 13,000 journalists.

The Chief Minister also agreed to the proposal for strengthening staff at the District level and recruit 68 publicity assistants half of them by outsourcing and half by direct recruitment. The Chief Minister agreed to the proposal of routing all advertisements of various departments through I&PR. It was also decided that Media Accreditation and other committees will be constituted at the earliest.

The Chief Minister positively responded to the proposal to modernise the public address system with latest technologies in all the districts in a phased manner and also provide vehicles to the DPROs in all districts.

The Chief Minister advised the officials of the department to go in for massive campaigns though Radio and Cable channels against all social evils like illiteracy, Health issues and campaign against consumption of liquor etc. He said success stories of various government programmes should be highlighted. The Chief Minister suggested that messages about all the government flagship programmes and its success should be taken to people and I&PR has the biggest role in this.