KARACHI, SEP 29: /DNA/ – Raisa Adil, Principal Information Officer visited APNS House and held a meeting with Sindh based members of the Executive Committee of the APNS. She was accompanied by Ms. Irum Tanvir, DG PID, Karachi.
The APNS President Senator Sarmad All welcomed the PIO and apprised her about the issues being faced by the newspaper industry. He pointed out that the Prime Minister’s commitment to increase government advertising rates for the print media was yet to be implemented. Despite the severe economic challenges confronting the newspaper industry. He urged upon the government to increase government newspaper adverting rates as per the commitment made by the Prime Minister and subsequently government advertising rates be delinked from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and be frozen till an new mechanism was worked out for determining newspaper circulations and readership. He also suggested that the offices of ABC and Press Registrar be merged into one entity.
The APNS President expressed the view that the authority to fix government advertisement rates should be transferred from the Cabinet Division to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, in line with the existing policy applicable to other media.
The APNS members reiterated the need to reform and restructure the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and the office of the Registrar. APNS members emphasized that the registration rules should be simplified in consultation with all stakeholders.
The members observed that PID Islamabad has not paid major portion of dues of member publications released after the new advertising policy of 2020. They requested the PIO to expedite the payment of outstanding dues and allocate a fair share in the quantum of advertisements for the print media. They also demanded that the regional PID offices be empowered to suggest media of their regions and authorized the clients to select the media of their choice.
The APNS President also pointed out that the existing government advertising policy is largely based on the 1964 framework and requires a comprehensive review to meet present-day media requirements. The Executive members proposed that the Regional offices of PID and the client departments should be empowered to prepare media plans according to their communication objectives and target audiences.
The PIO thanked APNS for the meeting and assured the APNS members that efforts would be made to resolve the issues at the earliest.
The meeting was attended by Senator Sarmad Ali President, Ms. Nazafreen Saigol Lakhani Senior Vice President, Mr. Shahab Zuberi Vice President, Muhammad Athar Kazi Secretary General, Mr. Javed Mehr Shamsi (Kaleem), Kazi Asad Abid (Ibrat), Mr. Younus Mehr (Halchal), Dr. Jabbar Khattak (Awami Awaz), Mr. Bilal Farooqui (Aghaz), Ms. Fauzia Shaheen (Dastak), Mr. Mumtaz Phulpoto (Awami Parchar), Mr. Tahir Qureshi (Naey Ufaq), Syed Akbar Tahir (Jasarat), Mr. Najamuddin Sheikh (Deyanat), Mr. Aamir Malik (Mashriq), Mr. Ali Hamza and Muhammad Irfan (Ummat).
