NEW DELHI: Media associations and journalist groups on Thursday criticised Congress president

’s

that the Centre, as part of austerity measures to generate funds to fight

, should impose a two-year ban on all non-Covid advertisements by the government and PSUs, and said this would amount to “financial censorship”.

The

(INS) condemned the proposal and asked the Congress chief to withdraw the suggestion. “Such a proposal tantamounts to financial censorship. It is a very small amount as far as government spending is concerned, but it is a huge amount for the newspaper industry, which is essential for any vibrant democracy, and is struggling to survive,” a statement by INS president Shailesh Gupta said.

INS also argued that advertisement and circulation revenues had already taken a beating as a result of recession and the digital onslaught. “Print is the only industry which has a wage board and the government decides how much the employees should be paid. This being the only industry where market forces don’t decide salaries, the government has a responsibility towards the industry,” it said.

Journalists’ bodies too expressed “utter dismay” and took “serious umbrage” at Sonia’s suggestions to PM

. Press Association, Indian Journalists Union,

and Working News Cameramen’s Association said this measure would “undermine the role of the media” at this crucial hour and called the suggestion “completely myopic and lacking in reason”.

“The effects of the ravaging pandemic has put the media industry, particularly print media, under severe financial stress and several newspapers have already suspended printing. Many journalists across the country have lost jobs due to this crisis. Stopping advertisements to the media at this juncture would blow the death knell of the industry, the role of which is very crucial in the fight against the deadly infection,” they said.

Earlier, the

and News Broadcasters Federation had deplored Sonia’s suggestion in the strongest terms and said it was not only “ill-timed but also highly arbitrary”.

In a letter to the PM, Sonia had made five suggestions for fighting Covid-19, including a “complete ban on media advertisements for two years, a 30% cut in expenditure budget, cutting down foreign travel of President, PM, all Union and state ministers, as well as bureaucrats, among measures to build emergency funds to tackle the coronavirus pandemic”.