Ahead of Diwali, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami showed up at the Uttaranchal Press Club's Deepawali Mahotsav in Dehradun on Thursday, November 5 — and he didn't come empty-handed. Beyond festival greetings, Dhami announced two concrete welfare measures for journalists: expanded accreditation quotas across tehsil, district, and state levels, and an increase in journalist pension amounts.

Two Announcements Journalists Were Waiting For

The Chief Minister stated that the number of recognised journalists at tehsil, district, and state levels in Uttarakhand will be increased. Alongside this, the journalist pension amount — which the state government has revised upward in the past — will be raised further. The exact revised figures were not specified at the event and are expected to follow through official notifications.

Dhami also highlighted an earlier welfare step: the Journalist Welfare Corpus has already been doubled from ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore. The government has separately extended measures covering journalist security, health insurance, emergency assistance, and housing facilities for accredited media professionals. Senior journalists' social security interests, he said, are also being looked after.

Dhami's Case for a Free and Accurate Press

Speaking at the event, Dhami described journalism as 'loktantra ka chautha stambh' — the fourth pillar of democracy — and a crucial bridge between government and citizen. He invoked the communication tradition of Devarshi Narada to frame journalists as society's messengers, carrying both government schemes to the public and public grievances back to the administration.

He was equally direct about the digital age's double edge. Digital platforms and social media have opened vast new possibilities for journalism, Dhami said, but the spread of fake news and misleading information has simultaneously become a serious challenge. In that environment, he argued, the journalist's responsibility to verify facts and deliver accurate, impartial information has grown sharper, not lighter.

Modernising Uttarakhand's Media Infrastructure

Beyond welfare benefits, Dhami outlined a broader intent: equipping media centres in the state with modern facilities and strengthening press clubs as institutions. He framed this as part of Uttarakhand's larger ambition to position itself among the country's leading states — and said journalists' constructive feedback and suggestions are central to that goal, not peripheral to it.

Present at the event were Cabinet Minister Khajan Das, Director General of Information Banshidhar Tiwari, Uttaranchal Press Club President Ajay Singh Rana, General Secretary Yogesh Semwal, and Treasurer Manish Dangwal, along with a large number of journalists from across the state.

The official notifications spelling out the new accreditation numbers and the revised pension quantum are what the press community will now watch for — because announcements made at Diwali gatherings only count when they appear in the government gazette.