Karnataka - Hubli-Dharwad   

Employees of insurance corporations strike work

Opposition: Employees of LIC and GIC staging a demonstration in Belgaum on Tuesday.

DHARWAD: Employees of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India in the districts of Dharwad, Haveri and Gadag boycotted work on Tuesday, in response to a one-day nationwide strike call to protest against the two Bills pertaining to insurance reforms that were introduced in Parliament on Monday.

While one Bill pertains to amending the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999, for raising the foreign direct investment cap in private companies from the present 26 per cent to 49 per cent and amending the General Insurance Business Nationalisation Act, 1972, for 50 per cent disinvestments in the four subsidiaries of General Insurance Corporation (GIC) of India, the other Bill pertains to amending the LIC Act, 1956, to facilitate increasing the minimum share capital of the Government from Rs. 5 crore to Rs. 100 crore.

In response to the strike call, employees of LIC and those of the four subsidiaries of the General Insurance Corporation (GIC) of India stayed away from work and staged demonstrations.

They urged the Union Government to immediately withdraw the Bills in the interests of the country.

In Dharwad, the LIC and GIC employees staged a demonstration outside the divisional office of LIC. B.N. Poojari of Insurance Employees’ Union, V.A. Kalagi of Class I Officers’ Association, Bhogeshwar Rao of National Organisation of Insurance Organisation and Uday Kutakoti of National Insurance Workers’ Organisation addressed the protesters.

Criticising the Government for tabling the “ill-advised” Bills, the speakers said that the increasing the FDI limit under external pressure would result in increased access to private foreign capital over the domestic savings, thereby weakening the public sector LIC of India.

Belgaum Staff Correspondent writes:

Employees of LIC of India and four subsidiaries of GIC on Tuesday joined the nationwide strike by nearly 1.75 lakh fellow employees to register protest against the Union Government for introducing the two Bills in Parliament, which they said would “completely alter” the character of LIC and GIC. The employees gathered at LIC’s Tilakwadi branch and staged a demonstration shouting slogans against the Government for contemplating further liberalisation in the financial sector.

According to G.V. Kulkarni and P.A. Joseph, president and general secretary, respectively, of the Insurance Employees’ Union, Belgaum division, the Bill tabled in the Rajya Sabha, amid protest by various parties, envisaged raising of the foreign direct investment cap in private insurance companies from 26 per cent to 49 per cent.

The Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha, which proposes to raise minimum share capital of the Government in LIC from Rs. 5 crore to Rs 100 crore would pave the way for privatisation of LIC in future, they said.

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