India’s News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has lauded the free Covid-19 vaccination camp for media persons and their family members started from yesterday near Film City in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi, organised by the Uttar Pradesh State government.

Nearly 500 media persons, belonging to various news channels like India TV, Aaj Tak, News 24, ABP News, TV18, Zee News and News Nation, will be administered vaccines on the first day.

Media persons from other news channels like Times Now, TV9 and Total TV are expected to join today.

In a press statement, Rajat Sharma, President, NB), thanked the State Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for arranging the vaccination camp.

“Noida is a big centre for national electronic media and most of the TV journalists and camerapersons belonging to news channels toil day and night to bring news about Covid-19 pandemic to viewers across the country. These media persons work and live here. I had requested the Chief Minister to start vaccination of media persons on a priority basis because they face health hazards while interviewing Covid-19 patients, relatives, doctors and other health workers. They are among our frontline Covid-19 warriors and need vaccination en masse,” Sharma added.

NBA is one of the news trade bodies in India, and represents the private television news and current affairs broadcasters. The NBA has presently 22 leading news and current affairs broadcasters (comprising 74 news and current affairs channels) as its members.

The NBA President had written a letter to the UP chief minister earlier this month, requesting him to open special free vaccination centres for all media persons at their workplaces in the state and the Chief Minister had promptly responded the same day by directing authorities to start the vaccination campaign.