The All India Insurance Employees’ Association (AIIEA) has begun a letter campaign to mobilise 20 lakh letters signed by public sector insurance company policy holders to the Prime Minster, urging him to withdraw two insurance-related bills.
Around 10 lakh policy holders have already signed for the campaign that seeks the scrapping of Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill 2008 and LIC Act (Amendment) Bill 2009, J. Gurumurthy, AIIEA Joint Secretary, told
journalists in Madurai on Monday.
While the former seeks to increase foreign direct investment from 26 per cent to 49 per cent, the latter raises the equity of LIC from Rs.5 crore to Rs.100 crore. It has been widely acknowledged that India weathered the onslaught of global economic recession mainly due to the strength of its public sector units. In this scenario, opening up the insurance sector was not acceptable, he said.
There was also no need to infuse more capital into LIC as its total assets had crossed Rs.10 lakh crore. The Government intends to pave way for future disinvestment of a massive public institution like the LIC which has 23 crore policy holders, Mr. Gurumurthy contended.
Wage revision
Speaking about the ongoing negotiations over wage revision, he said that the four public sector general insurance companies had together grown by 11.05 per cent in the last eight months up to November and raised Rs.13,128 crore in premium.
These managements had offered only 15 per cent wage revisions and the LIC management had offered 17.5 per cent while the unions were seeking 40 per cent.
“An one hour walk out would be staged by the unions on Tuesday (December 22) urging the management to improve their offer and expedite the negotiations,” he said. He was here to address a two-day zonal level district secretaries meet organised by the south zone of General Insurance Employees’ Association.
