The Bengaluru City Newspaper Distributors and Vendors’ Association has appealed to Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa to consider newspaper distributors and vendors as COVID warriors so that they too would be eligible for financial relief.
The association officebearers met the Chief Minister in Bengaluru on Monday and submitted a memorandum. In the memorandum, they said thousands of distributors and vendors had been working without a break even during the pandemic to distribute newspapers to the public. They said they were working amidst testing times by taking all precautions such as use of sanitisers and masks.
Hit hard
They had been hit hard by the pandemic, and they did not have other sources of income, they said. “Distribution of newspapers is the only thing we have been doing for a long time. This is our life and breath,” they said, and appealed to the Chief Minister to include them in the list of COVID warriors.
Memorandum
They also submitted a memorandum to Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan, Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah, and KPCC chief D. K. Shivakumar.
