NEW DELHI: Applications of journalists for PIB accreditation will be intensely scrutinised before they get the approval from this year, said sources in the ministry. This will be applicable both for those submitting fresh applications for PIB accreditation and those applying for renewal. The Press Information Bureau (PIB) comes under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. This move comes in the wake of the PIB cancelling the accreditation of Brajesh Kumar - the key accused in the Bihar shelter home scandal.
"The PIB will take a closer look at accreditation applications that come for renewal at the end of the year and also at fresh applications before they are approved. The closer analysis will mean a number of checklists are ticked off before the application is cleared for each journalist. The PIB will put a mechanism in place to run thorough checks on the organisations that the persons applying for accreditation are associated with in addition to the routine checks," said a source in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The PIB is yet to decide how to execute the entire exercise on tightening its accreditation procedure. Journalists with five years of experience and freelancers with 15 years of work experience are eligible for PIB accreditation.Kumar, who was arrested after news of minors being rape in Muzaffarpur's shelter home surfaced, ran newspapers - each in English, Hindi and Urdu.
According to reports, Kumar inflated circulation figures of his newspapers in order to get more advertisement revenues from the government.The circular of the I&B Ministry also mentions that all facilities that Kumar had access to like health benefits, government accommodation and railway passes, among other benefits. The Bihar government has also initiated an investigation to examine if Kumar and his colleagues misused facilities that he had access to as a PIB accredited journalist.