ISLAMABAD, Feb 08 (INP): Pakistan News Agencies Council (PNAC) has expressed concern over the stoppage of grants approved for news agencies from the parliament.

The PNAC in a meeting held with Senior Vice President Tahir Khan in chair here on Friday said all independent news agencies are facing difficulties due to behavior of the government.

It was said in the meeting that the parliament had approved grants for news agencies in budget 2018-19 but the ministry of information has not released the grants despite the passage of seven months.

The participants of the meeting said that the members of the Council time and again reminded to the Minister for Information and Secretary of Information during meeting with them but the genuine demand was not accepted.

The Council has decided to take all legal steps for receiving the approved grants for news agencies.

The meeting also expressed concern over the rude behaviour of federal information secretary Shafqat Jaleel.

It also appealed to the journalistic organizations including APNS and CPNE to help the Council in releasing the grants.

The private news agencies are facing difficulties due to the behavior of the government and the working journalists are becoming jobless due to financial crisis, it added.

It was also decided that the journalistic organizations would be contacted regarding the issue so that news agencies could be saved from devastation.

Tahir Khan, Tariq Sumair, Shakeel Turabi, Abdul Qayoom Farooqi, Adnan, Ansar Bhatti, Aslam Khan and Ashiq Hussain participated in the meeting of the Council.