KARACHI: A joint meeting between the All Pakistan Akhbar Farosh Federation and APNS was held here on Wednesday.

According to a press release, the meeting was chaired by APNS president Hameed Haroon. The APNS was represented by Sarmad Ali, secretary general, Ilyas Shakir, Chairman Marketing & Distribution Committee, and Niloufer Patel, vice chairman of the committee.

The Akhbar Farosh Federation was represented by Tikka Khan, secretary general; Iqbal Noon, president, Karachi; Abdul Sattar, vice president, Sindh; Chaudry Nazeer, VP Karachi; Shaikh Umer Deen, senior secretary; Qadri Yousuf, VP KPK; Shabbir Gillani, VP AJK; Hameed Dada, Gen Sec, Karachi; M. Shafique, Secretary Information; Mir Afzal, president, Hyderabad; Shafique, president, Rawalpindi; Aqueel Abbasi, Gen Sec, Rawalpindi; Ayub Meher, Mirpur; Sohail Shakeel, Rahim Yar Khan; M. Ilyas, Lahore; Nazeer, Sialkot; and Hafiz M. Siddique, Gujrat. The meeting was also attended by Kh Kaleem of Dawn.

The meeting discussed the problems faced by the Akhbar Farosh of the country. Tikka Khan stated that there should be a uniform basis of commission throughout the country and the APNS should train the Akhbar Farosh community on how to better market newspapers. He also pointed that severe problems were faced in distribution with the closure of newspaper stalls.

The APNS president pointed out that the two organisations should work together according to the law to improve circulation of newspapers in the face of competition from television and internet so that better sales and improved prices can result in an enhancement of income for the Akhbar Farosh community.

The chairman of distribution committee also said that the federation should actively move to improve and strengthen the distribution networks for newspapers.

The secretary general APNS pointed out that the deliberations with the federation over the past year yielded an understanding for an increased range of prices resulting in increased commission to the Akhbar Farosh.

A committee comprising Hameed Haroon, Tikka Khan, Sarmad Ali and Ilyas Shakir was constituted to solve problems faced by the Akhbar Farosh community.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2014