MADURAI
More than a hundred members of the Life Insurance Corporation of India Agents Organisation of India (LICAOI), affiliated to Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), staged a demonstration near the LIC office in Sellur here on Friday, highlighting their demand for minimum wages, pension and other welfare measures.
Arguing that the Kerala government’s recent announcement on creation of a welfare fund for LIC agents that will provide them a slew of benefits, the agents, who took part in the demonstration, urged the Union government to implement a similar scheme at the earliest.
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K. Mari, general secretary, Madurai division, LICAOI, said that the welfare benefits announced by the Kerala government included a compensation of ₹ 2 lakh in case of accidental death, ₹ 1 lakh in case of natural death, pension and health insurance.
Pointing out that there was no fixed salary for LIC agents at present, the protesters demanded the Union government to fix a minimum salary of ₹ 18,000 throughout the country for the agents.
Other demands included the removal of Goods and Services Tax (GST) imposed on the payment of insurance premium.
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“For normal policies, GST of 4.5 % is imposed on the first year and for group insurance an atrociously high GST of 18 % is enforced. This has to be removed,” Mr. Mari said.
The agents also demanded the time provided for renewal of policies be increased to five years. “If a policy lapses due to non-payment of premiums, earlier it could be renewed within five years. Now, it has been reduced to two years. It has to be changed back to five years,” he said.
Highlighting the issues that affected the general public, they also demanded the reduction of fuel prices.