Who Benefits From The New Rules Of The Press Service Portal?

by Amitabh Pandey

The RNI (Registrar of Newspapers for India) number, on the basis of which journalists are running their newspapers, their news bulletins, their feature services, their magazines and their websites, could soon be cancelled! This conclusion is from the advisory number 03, which has been issued on 10 March 2025 from the Press Registrar General’s Office of the Government of India.

According to the advisory, from 10 March 2025 onwards, daily, weekly, monthly, fortnightly, newspapers and magazines have been directed to provide details online along with their original copy. This has now been made mandatory. This advisory has increased the office expenses and extra time of newspapers and magazines. In the big newspaper groups, there is a staff of 10-15 to 50 people in the computer field. It is very easy for them to send information online every day.

However, it will be difficult for journalists who run small-medium newspapers and magazines and run their newspapers and take care of their families with limited resources to follow the new rules. The reason is that for daily online information, either the technical staff will have to be increased or the one who is currently working will have to be paid extra money.

This is because it will take extra time to submit information online every day. It is important to mention here that when the original copy of the newspaper and magazine is being made available in the central and state offices of the government, the work of its online entry should be given to the concerned office where it is deposited.

The work of online entry of newspapers and magazines deposited in government departments should be given to the departmental employees. A demand to this effect is also being made by journalist organizations. A question is also being raised in this connection about who is going to benefit from the advisory of uploading newspapers and magazines on the press service portal? This will not affect the big newspaper groups much, but the problems of other journalists will increase. The financial burden on such journalists will increase.

In the rising inflation, this financial burden will give rise to more problems for the publishers of small newspapers and magazines.

Let us tell you that we are going through a time when we get to read news of increase in salary and allowances of public representatives, officers, employees every day. Even after this, the names of some leaders, officers, employees keep getting read and heard due to corruption and raids. You can look at the figures.

The data will also prove that the number of journalists engaging in corruption is very less compared to the leaders and officers. Even though raids have been conducted at big newspaper groups, the investigative agencies do not even raid most of the journalists. Some media groups or journalists can be exceptions in this matter. It is not right to call all journalists corrupt and defame them due to such exceptions. We have to accept that the backward and weaker sections of society, workers and journalists are facing the most problems due to rising inflation and corruption.

Rising inflation has made it difficult for journalists living in small cities to make a living.

On the other hand, there are some journalists who believe that people who do not understand the seriousness of this profession have got involved in it. The conduct, work and behaviour of such people is not in accordance with journalism. Keeping in mind such people – who are doing journalism without dignity – the government is now implementing strict rules.

Anyway, those who support and oppose the new rules for newspapers and magazines have their own arguments but it is certain that the impact of these rules will be more on small newspapers and magazines and newspaper owners. In this regard, representatives of many newspapers and magazines are conveying their views to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India. Many associations of print media have written to the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister in this regard and have demanded amendments in the new rules.

National Union of Journalists’ National President Ras Bihari and General Secretary Pradeep Tiwari have called a meeting of the officials to take up this issue, in which discussions will be held for the future course of action. Former member of the Press Council of India and National General Secretary of the All India Small and Medium Newspapers Federation Ashok Navratna also believes that while implementing the new rules, the journalists running small newspapers and magazines should also be taken care of.

The government gives limited advertisements to small and medium newspapers and magazines while it gives unlimited advertisements to big newspaper groups. The demand is that the government should provide protection to small and medium newspapers and magazines. The point to be considered is that the government does not have offices of CBC, RNI and PIB in every district. PIB offices are only in the state capitals. The newspapers of every district have to go to the state capitals to deposit the newspapers. This is costly.

At present, the newspapers have to be deposited in the district information offices and also in the Directorate of Information in the state capitals. In the light of this, what is the justification for uploading the photo of the newspaper copy? On one hand, the central government is not even giving advertisements to small and medium newspapers. Why is the government hell-bent on ending the print media?

The Press Council of India passed a proposal to remove GST from small and medium newspapers and sent it to the GST Council. However, no decision has been taken on this till date. The sub-committee of the Press Council of India on advertising matters had given its recommendations to the council a long time ago, on which the Chairperson of PCI has asked the Central and State Governments to implement the recommendations. The recommendations have not been implemented till date.

The government should implement the recommendations immediately. The government also has the responsibility to ensure compliance with its rules. The Central and State Governments are not complying with the advertising policies. The government is benefiting only a few selected newspapers.